Lucy Cane presents the first full-length study of Sheldon Wolin (1922-2015), an influential theorist of democracy and prescient critic of "inverted totalitarianism" in the United States. She traces the development of Wolin's thinking over sixty years, offering an overarching interpretation of his central preoccupations and shifts in perspective. Framed around themes of loss and mourning, this is not only an intellectual biography, but also a critical engagement of Wolin's work with democratic theory more broadly and an assessment of its value for addressing contemporary crises of democracy. Cane brings Wolin into conversation with other contemporary theorists, from Chantal Mouffe to Edward Said, as well as with his direct intellectual influences. She argues that his mournful tendencies continue to offer unique insight into the potential loss of local democratic cultures in an era of neoliberal precarity. At the same time, she questions whether his politics of mourning can adequately grasp the dynamics of democratic coalition-building or the value of new political movements and ideas. Sheldon Wolin and Democracy remedies a lack of interpretive studies of this key thinker, connects divergent strands of contemporary theory, and addresses urgent democratic dilemmas. It is a must read for all political theorists and others in the academy and beyond who seek to conceptualize the fate of democracy amidst the rise of right-wing populist movements in the twenty-first century.

Many contemporary social movements observe, copy, learn from, coordinate and cooperate with other movements abroad, and some mobilise to influence processes of global governance. Can these transnational dimensions of mobilization transform the territorial scale of political debate on issues of common concern in public spheres? In contrast to many existing studies, which focus on the media as carriers of public sphere transnationalisation, this book presents a theoretical and empirical exploration of the role of social movements in such processes. As 'arenas' or subaltern counterpublics in themselves, social movements may provide a setting in which activists come to frame claims in a comparative manner, interact with activists from other countries, frame problems as matters of transnational concerns or consider themselves members of transnational communities. As 'actors' social movements may contribute to the transnational transformation of public spheres by directing claims to political authorities beyond the state, claiming to represent transnational constituencies, and focus on similar issues and use similar frames of reference as movements abroad. The book's case studies addressing efforts to build transnational social movements and transnational dimensions of anti-austerity and prodemocracy movements in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey and Ireland provide contemporary empirical illustrations of such processes at work. The chapters were originally published in a special issue of the Journal of Civil Society.

After several decades of reform and opening up, China has come to a critical period of transformation and development. How to improve the development strategies to effectively promote China's democratic politics has once again attracted the world's attention. This book compares the commons and differences between western and Chinese theories and practices of democracy model, and proposes a new democracy model for China's political reform - "cooperative-harmonious democracy". Absorbing the core values of democracy, this model draws on Chinese traditional "harmony and cooperation" and "people-oriented" thought, as well as modern cooperative game theory. More importantly, it adopts the new model to analyse some present practice cases in China, involving intra-party democracy, electoral democracy, and deliberative democracy. This book is a valuable theoretical innovation and a significant achievement in promoting the interdisciplinary research of political science and public management. It strategically reflects on how to promote the development of cooperative-harmonious democracy from the perspective of high-level design. The policy suggestions it proposed will be a valuable reference for policy-makers.

Originally published in 1969, Anarchy and Culture both documents and describes the influence of the student and academic in the case of revolution and protest within the university. The book looks at the theory behind the culture of revolution within the contemporary university and comments upon the affect this has upon teaching, as well as the student experience. This edited collection contains a wide range of essays from a broad range of contributors in the fields of Sociology, English, and Education. Focusing predominately on study of the university in the UK, the book covers a spread of political comment, and personal attitude in analysing culture and anarchy in relation to the contemporary university.

This book claims that in addition to autonomy, liberal tradition recognizes human flourishing as an ideal of the good life. There are two versions of the liberalism of flourishing: for one the good life consists in the ability of an individual to develop her intellectual and moral capabilities, and for the other the good life is one in which an individual succeeds in materializing her varied human capabilities. Both versions expect the state to create the background conditions for flourishing. Combining the history of ideas with analytical political philosophy, Menachem Mautner finds the roots of the liberalism of flourishing in the works of great philosophers, and argues that for individuals to reach flourishing they need to engage with art. Art provides us with wisdom, insight, critical social and political thinking, and moral education. Thus, a state which practices the liberalism of flourishing must play an active role in funding the creation and dissemination of art. Consequently, the liberalism of flourishing is better equipped than autonomy liberalism to compete with religion in the domains of meaning and over the shape of the regime, the political culture and the law in countries in which liberalism is contested. Political theorists and lawyers will enjoy engaging with this version of liberalism, as will students of social democracy and art policy.

Getting to grips with the overlapping geopolitical, economic, and political crises faced by Western democratic societies in the 2020s. The 21st century has brought a powerful tide of geopolitical, economic, and democratic shocks. Their fallout has led central banks to create over $25 trillion of new money, brought about a new age of geopolitical competition, destabilised the Middle East, ruptured the European Union, and exposed old political fault lines in the United States. Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century is a long history of this present political moment. It recounts three histories - one about geopolitics, one about the world economy, and one about western democracies - and explains how in the years of political disorder prior to the pandemic the disruption in each became one big story. It shows how much of this turbulence originated in problems generated by fossil-fuel energies, and it explains why as the green transition takes place the long-standing predicaments energy invariably shapes will remain in place.

Many contemporary surveillance practices take place in information infrastructures which are from the public domain. Although they have far reaching consequences for both citizens and their rights, they are not always subject to regulatory demands and oversight. This being said, democratic fora where citizens and institutions may question such practices cannot be mobilised without widespread awareness of the dangers and consequences of surveillance practices and who is responsible for them. Through an analysis of surveillance controversies across Europe, this book not only examines the troublesome relationship between surveillance and democracy; but also highlights the vested interests which maintain the status quo. Using a participatory theory lens, Surveillance and Democracy in Europe reveals the historical, social, political and legal antecedents of the current state of affairs. Arguing that participation is a sensitising concept which enables a wide array of surveillance practices and processes to be interrogated, this insightful volume will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as public administration and policy, political studies, organisational behaviour and surveillance and privacy.

The effectiveness and capacity of survival of democratic regimes has been recently and widely questioned in the public and political debate. Both democratic institutions and political actors are increasingly confronted with rapid economic and societal transformations that, at least according to some observers and commentators, they not seem to be ready or equipped to manage effectively. This book evaluates and challenges recent scholarly literature on the quality of democracy. It provides a critical assessment of the current state of the studies on the subject, identifying the key questions and discussing open issues, alternative approaches, problems and future developments. Bringing together some of the most prominent and distinguished scholars who have developed and discussed the topic of the quality of democracy during the last decade, it deals with a highly relevant topic in political science and extremely sensitive subject for our democratic societies. This text will be of key interest to scholars of democracy and democratization and more broadly to comparative politics, electoral studies, political theory, power and comparative political institutions.

In this study, an audit of British compliance with international human rights standards is carried out. The book identifies 44 violations and 19 near violations. It provides an up-to-date description of law and practice with respect of freedom of information, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and public protest, freedom of association and trade unionism, state surveillance, the right to life and liberty, and the right to vote and stand in elections. This study looks at both the political and legal aspects of political freedom in the UK. It measures political freedom specifically against international standards and provides the "Human Rights Index" - a system for measuring political rights which may be used to monitor legislation in the UK from 1997 or in any country in the rest of the world.

Originally published in 2002 Culture, Ritual and Revolution in Vietnam is a study of the history and consequences of the revolutionary campaign to transform culture and ritual in northern Vietnam. Based upon official documents and several years of field research in Thinh Liet Commune, a Red River delta community near Hanoi, it provides the first detailed account of the nature of revolutionary cultural reforms in Vietnam as how those reforms continue to animate contemporary socio-cultural life. The study examines the key foci of revolutionary cultural change, such as the articulation of a new moral system, the attempts to eliminate explanations that invoke supernatural causality, the creation of socialist weddings and funerals, and the development of innovation ties to commemorate war dead. By examining debates over culture, ritual, and morality that have emerged between residents, notably between men and women, and party members and non-party members, the study shows how ideas and values that preceded the revolution have entered into a creative dialogue with those that were articulated by the revolution, and how this has produced an innovative set of ritual and other practices, particularly since the relaxation of the cultural reform agenda in the post-1986 period.

Manipulation is a source of pervasive anxiety in contemporary American politics. Observers charge that manipulative practices in political advertising, media coverage, and public discourse have helped to produce an increasingly polarized political arena, an uninformed and apathetic electorate, election campaigns that exploit public fears and prejudices, a media that titillates rather than educates, and a policy process that too often focuses on the symbolic rather than substantive.

Manipulating Democracy offers the first comprehensive dialogue between empirical political scientists and normative theorists on the definition and contemporary practice of democratic manipulation. This impressive array of distinguished scholars-political scientists, philosophers, cognitive psychologists, and communications scholars-collectively draw out the connections between competing definitions of manipulation, the psychology of manipulation, and the political institutions and practices through which manipulation is seen to produce a tightly-knit exploration of an issue at the heart of democratic politics.

Jesus Christ has made an indelible mark on human history and he continues to do so through his followers. Yet many people do not realise that the values western democracies are built on originate in the life and teaching of Jesus. This is the discussion guide that can be used alongside Jesus the Game Changer DVD. In the DVD series host Karl Faase travels to the UK, USA, India, Singapore and Australia interviewing over thirty authors, academics and modern-day game changers about how the life and teaching of Jesus changed the world and why it matters. The discussion guide follows the sessions in the DVD: 1. Jesus 2. Equality 3. Forgiveness 4. Women & Children 5. Democracy 6. Care 7. Leadership 8. Education & Health 9. Wealth 10. Reason & Science

Why does 1968 matter today? The authors of this volume believe that it is a crucial point of reference for current developments, especially the 'illiberal turn' both in Europe and America. If we want to understand it, we need to look back into 1968 - the year that founded the cultural and political order of today's world. The book consists of the following four sections: '1968 and transnationality', '1968 and the transformation of meanings', 'Artistic representations of 1968', and '1968 and the European contemporaity'. This is followed by an afterword from the significant keynote speaker at the conference Unsettled 1968: Origins - Myth - Impact in June 2018 in Tubingen, Germany: Irena Grudzinska-Gross, herself a Polish '68er', reflects upon the conference and leaves remarks on her 50 years of engagement with what happened in 1968.

Since the death of Franco in 1975, Spain has passed from repression through renewal to democracy, restored for the first time since 1936. Having survived the threat to its very existence in 1981, democratic Spain?now a member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?seems as secure as any of its European neighbors. The acces

While the process of democratization is nowadays an established scholarship, the reverse process of de-democratization has generated less attention even when the regression or even breakdown of democracy occurred on a regular basis over past decades. This book investigates both the different combination of explanatory factors triggering the transition from democratic rule as well as the role of the actors' involved in the process. It aims to integrate different levels of analysis and explanatory factors through a comparative analysis of the phenomenon since the beginning of the third wave of democratization. As such, it addresses the existing divide between the approaches focused on the conditions and those focused on the processes of change, using a mixed-method research design. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, democracy, democratization and de-democratization, political theory, and comparative political institutions.

This book examines the various stages of China's development, in the economic, social, and political fields, relating theories and models of development to what is actually occurring in China, and discussing how China's development is likely to progress going forward. It argues that China's modernization hitherto can be characterized as "authoritarian development" - a fusion of mixed economic institutions of varying types of ownership with social stability and political cohesiveness - and that the present phase, where more emphasis is being given to social issues, is likely to lead on to a new phase where a more mature civil society and a more extensive middle class are likely to look for greater democratization. It presents an in-depth analysis of China's changing social structure and civil society, explores the forces for and processes of democratization, and assesses the prospects for further democratization in the light of changing social structures.

This book explores the often assumed but so far not examined proposition that a particular U.S. culture influences U.S. foreign policy behavior or, more concretely, that widely shared basic assumptions embraced by members of the U.S. administration have a notable impact on foreign policy-making. Publicly professed beliefs regarding America's role in the world and about democracy's universal appeal - despite much contestation - go to the heart of U.S. national identity. Employing extensive foreign policy text analysis as well as using the case study of U.S.-Egyptian bilateral relations during the Clinton, Bush junior, and Obama administrations, it shows that basic assumptions matter in U.S. democracy promotion in general, and the book operationalizes them in detail as well as employs qualitative content analysis to assess their validity and variation. The research presented lies at the intersection of International Relations, U.S. foreign policy, regional studies, and democracy promotion. The specific focus on the domestic 'cultural' angle for the study of foreign policy and this dimension's operationalization makes it a creative crossover study and a unique contribution to these overlapping fields.

Bringing together scholars of inequality, both inside and outside of Asia, this book examines how the distribution of income has affected political institutions, representation, and behaviour in Asia. Through detailed data analysis, the international team of contributors engages with the existing literature, arguing that the connection between inequality and political institutions is much more complex than has been suggested by previous studies from outside the region. Instead, Inequality and Democratic Politics in East Asia demonstrates that the micro-level evidence for the correlation between inequality and democracy is mixed and the impact of distributive politics is conditioned not only by institutional but also by historical and geopolitical factors. As such, this volume suggests that the median voter theorem and simplified partisan models prove to be ineffectual in accounting for distributive politics in East Asia. Analysing history, structure, and context to further understand the politics of inequality in East Asia, this book will be invaluable to students of Asian politics, as well as students of inequality, democracy, and political economy more widely.

South Africa's amnesty was a unique experiment. A path that lay 'between a Nuremberg option and total amnesia,' the amnesty process was designed in the heat of a remarkable and complex transition to constitutional democracy. Perpetrators from all sides of the conflict were asked to reveal what they did and why. According to the TRC, this equation of truth for amnesty promised not forgetting or impunity, but an important picture of the past - stories and testimony that could help the nation to 'sharpen its moral conscience and to ensure that, never, never again, will it gradually atrophy to the point where personal responsibility is abdicated.' Amnesty's challenge was to 'develop public awareness, to keep the memories alive, not only of gross violations of human rights, but of everyday life under apartheid.'

This book offers a fascinating, thought-provoking and ground-breaking study of post-communist political life. It is published just as the countries of Central and Eastern Europe mark thirty years since gaining freedom and have embarked on the path of democracy. This book is one of the first full-length academic works to explore the question of how informal structures, headed by bosses, godfathers and oligarchs, affect formal party politics and democracy. The unique post-communist transition is observed as a specific historical moment of disorder, offering a window of opportunity for the large-scale exploitation of public resources in the sense of a kind of "Klondike Gold Rush." Phenomena of corruption, clientelism, patronage, party capture and state capture are topical themes that are deeply explored. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Central and Eastern European politics, democratisation, transitional societies, clientelism, party systems and more broadly of comparative and European politics.

Violations of the right to the physical integrity of the person, such as torture, cruel and unusual punishment, extra-judicial executions, disappearances, and political imprisonment have long been treated as an anomaly in democratically governed societies. In the current literature on human rights, violations of this right are by-and-large seen as the hallmark of autocratic and repressive regimes. This study takes on this dominant paradigm and shows not only that the common assumption that democratic countries effectively limit human rights abuse is simply wrong, but that its widely accepted theory of what drives human rights violations accounts for only a small part of these abuses at best. Haschke shows that despite the increasing numbers of countries that are democracies, and despite growing numbers of national signatories to international treaties prohibiting human rights abuse, the number of allegations has not declined. This book also demonstrates that the bulk of this abuse, which takes the form of torture and ill-treatment, extra-judicial killings, rape, and the like, is committed against marginal members of society, seeming to reveal environments that enable agents of the state to abuse those with whom they are in contact. This violence is found in democracies and dictatorships alike. This work will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, human rights and comparative politics.

This volume purports to explore the legal and political issues triggered by the new wave of secessionism. More specifically, those issues concern the interplay between notions of democracy (and democratic ends and means) and law (and the rule of law and constitutionalism). Against this background, the editors use amorality in order to escape the terrain of the justification of secession by making a distinction between the democratic theory of secession and the theory of democratic secession. In the first section, the theoretical nexus democracy-secession has been approached both from a legal and political theory perspective. The second section of the book examines the instruments that the theory of democratic secession invokes in order to justify secession and presents both legal and political science contributions. The third section focuses on social movements and political actors. The fourth section focuses on two case studies due to the awareness of the importance of the difference between secession in a democratic occidental context (which call into play the discussion of the democratic theories) and separations in a non-democratic context (where the nexus between secession and democracy is not really central).

This book explores the often assumed but so far not examined proposition that a particular U.S. culture influences U.S. foreign policy behavior or, more concretely, that widely shared basic assumptions embraced by members of the U.S. administration have a notable impact on foreign policy-making. Publicly professed beliefs regarding America's role in the world and about democracy's universal appeal - despite much contestation - go to the heart of U.S. national identity. Employing extensive foreign policy text analysis as well as using the case study of U.S.-Egyptian bilateral relations during the Clinton, Bush junior, and Obama administrations, it shows that basic assumptions matter in U.S. democracy promotion in general, and the book operationalizes them in detail as well as employs qualitative content analysis to assess their validity and variation. The research presented lies at the intersection of International Relations, U.S. foreign policy, regional studies, and democracy promotion. The specific focus on the domestic 'cultural' angle for the study of foreign policy and this dimension's operationalization makes it a creative crossover study and a unique contribution to these overlapping fields.

This volume reflects on two decades of Welsh devolution, and a contributes to debate on its significance and future course. Drawing on previously unpublished interviews undertaken by the late Professor Michael Sullivan with key protagonists in Welsh devolution, and with expert analysis from leading researchers in different disciplines and fields of policy, the book examines what has been described as the emergence through devolution of a 'Welsh stripe' in social democracy. While the volume editors conclude this epithet, coined by Professor Sullivan, is apt, this collection of essays also presents a complex, multi-faceted picture of the drivers of policy, of continuity from the pre-devolution era, as well as change driven by factors within and without Wales. A mixed picture emerges, featuring variously (and in various combinations of) boldness of ambition, distinctive ideological positioning, homegrown priority-setting, the frustrations of the devolution settlement, and adverse (arguably unfair) international comparisons.

Based on rigorous analysis of the propaganda of five Western European separatist parties, this book provides in-depth examination of the 'nationalism of the rich', defined as a type of nationalist discourse that seeks to end the economic 'exploitation' suffered by a group of people represented as a wealthy nation and supposedly carried out by the populations of poorer regions and/or by inefficient state administrations. It shows that the nationalism of the rich represents a new phenomenon peculiar to societies that have set in place complex systems of wealth redistribution and adopted economic growth as the main principle of government legitimacy. The book argues that the nationalism of the rich can be seen as a rhetorical strategy portraying independent statehood as a solution to the dilemma between solidarity and efficiency arisen in Western Europe since the end of the Glorious Thirties. It further suggests that its formation can be best explained by the following combination of factors: (1) the creation, from the end of the Second World War, of extensive forms of automatic redistribution to a scale previously unprecedented; (2) the beginning, from the mid-1970s, of an era of 'permanent austerity' exacerbated, in specific contexts, by situations of serious public policy failure; (3) the existence of national/cultural cleavages roughly squaring with uneven development and sharp income differentials among territorial areas of a given state.