The creation of temporary, independent advisory bodies that give advice to Congress, is an important yet under-investigated area of congressional delegation. With variations to fit the circumstances, lawmakers entrust commissions to accomplish diverse goals, such as coping with increases in the scope and complexity of legislation, forging consensus, drafting legislation, finessing institutional obstacles, coordinating strategy, and promoting party unity.

Campbell investigates why and when Congress formulates policy by commissions rather than by the normal legislative process. He shows that many variables go into the decision to entrust those bodies to render non-partisan recommendations. According to lawmakers and their staff, the three primary justifications for choosing to delegate to commission include expertise, workload, and avoidance. Which of these three dominates depends in large part on the politics surrounding a particular issue and the nature of the policy problem. The logic of delegation to each of the three commission types is different. Which reason dominates depends in large part on the politics surrounding the issue and the nature of the legislative policy problem. Scholars, students, and other researchers involved with Congress, American government, and public policy will find the study of particular interest.

This book examines China's process of democratic transition, and the role of state and society in this process.

The concept of social capital has been used by political scientists to explain both the transition to democracy in Eastern Europe and the decline of social cohesion in Western societies. This edited collection presents the latest quantitative research on how post-communist countries are adapting to Western models of society. The book combines theoretical and institutional analysis with detailed case-studies looking at Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania and the former East Germany.

This book argues that the weakness of civil society in the post-Soviet Caucasus is a result not only of post-communist political and economic problems, but also of the effects of historical legacies. These influence both formal and informal civil societies and weaken the countries' ability to facilitate democratisation.

Looking into Brazil's recent experience of democracy is an arduous undertaking, given the complexities of a country of continental size and great regional contrasts, where areas of prosperity and wealth mingle with underdevelopment and poverty. This book looks at some of the important issues involved in building up a democracy and keeping it working. How should we assess Brazil's experience of democracy? To what extent has the emergence of a democratic regime improved Brazilians' social, economic, and political life? Has democracy been consolidated to the point of making a political breakdown unthinkable or improbable? These are questions that any student of Brazil has to address. The answers to them, however, are far from simple. Contributors include Edmund Amann (School of Economic Studies, University of Manchester, UK), Maria Celi Scalon (Insituto Universitario de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Carlos Antonio Costa Ribeiro (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil), Mauricio Coutinho (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil), Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), James Dunkerley (Institute of Latin American Studies and Queen Mary, University of London, UK), Antonio Sergio A. Guimaraes (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), Anthony Hall (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), Fernando Limongi (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), Fiona Macaulay (Centre for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford and Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, UK), Celso Martone (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), Leandro Piquet Carneiro (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil), Mauro Porto (Universidade de Brasilia, Brazil), and Brasilio Sallum Jr. (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil).

This text seeks to understand the problematic relationship between liberal democracy and contemporary citizenship by tracing the links between conceptual debates about these issues and the specific social, political and historical dynamics of a host of different countries. Offering a careful blend of theoretical discussion and case study material, it provides an introduction to both sociologies of citizenship and politics of democracy and a fascinating series of overviews of particular nation states. Class, race, gender and globalization are recurring themes in the book, which addresses the ongoing possibilities of politics and cultural meaning within nation states.

In this study of the mechanisms of transitional justice in Poland, Frances Millard asks: How does society come to terms with its past? How should it punish the perpetrators of oppression and acknowledge its victims? In the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe the task of answering these questions came down to the need to eliminate the communist parties' hold over the state, the economy and society in order to move towards democracy. Millard argues that the key step in achieving this was uncovering the truth about the previous regime's past, prosecuting the perpetrators of past crimes and providing compensation and restitution for its victims. Through the specific case of Poland, Millard provides a comprehensive assessment of the mechanisms and institutions used to achieve this, such as lustration, law enforcement through a Constitutional Tribunal and institutions dedicated to dealing with the past such as the Institute of National Remembrance. Crucially, these processes have assumed new significance in recent years after the Law and Justice Party came to power in 2015, using transitional justice as a tool of political control which has enabled the restructuring of Polish democracy.

Varieties of Democracy is the essential user's guide to The Varieties of Democracy project (V-Dem), one of the most ambitious data collection efforts in comparative politics. This global research collaboration sparked a dramatic change in how we study the nature, causes, and consequences of democracy. This book is ambitious in scope: more than a reference guide, it raises standards for causal inferences in democratization research and introduces new, measurable, concepts of democracy and many political institutions. Varieties of Democracy enables anyone interested in democracy - teachers, students, journalists, activists, researchers and others - to analyze V-Dem data in new and exciting ways. This book creates opportunities for V-Dem data to be used in education, research, news analysis, advocacy, policy work, and elsewhere. V-Dem is rapidly becoming the preferred source for democracy data.

Europe Undivided analyzes how an enlarging EU has facilitated a convergence toward liberal democracy among credible future members of the EU in Central and Eastern Europe. It reveals how variations in domestic competition put democratizing states on different political trajectories after 1989, and how the EU's leverage eventually influenced domestic politics in liberal and particularly illiberal democracies. In doing so, Europe Undivided illuminates the changing dynamics of the relationship between the EU and candidate states from 1989 to 2004, and challenges policymakers to manage and improve EU leverage to support democracy, ethnic tolerance, and economic reform in other candidates and proto-candidates such as the Western Balkan states, Turkey, and Ukraine. Albeit not by design, the most powerful and successful tool of EU foreign policy has turned out to be EU enlargement - and this book helps us understand why, and how, it works.

"Media, Economy and Democracy" offers a research-based exploration of the way the media portrays a range of political and economics-related topics and assesses the likely impact of that coverage. These include British domestic economy, anti-globalization protest, the Single Currency, and the European economy. Using both quantitative and qualitative techniques, Neil Gavin explores the implications that follow for journalism and the study of journalism, and for British and European democracy and politics.

This book shows that privatization in Britain constitutes a form of state power. After analyzing the historical and ideological background, the study examines how market processes indirectly extend state control by governing participation in state asset sales, regulatory regimes, deregulated policymaking and the marketization of trade unions. Privatizing control remade British democracy. Direct state power has been concentrated and held in reserve, while market processes guide wide areas of routine decision-making. Thus, it is demonstrated that privatization has depoliticized choice and diminished freedom.

In its first edition, "The Global Resurgence of Democracy" brought together essays on democratization written from 1989 to 1991 by internationally prominent scholars, intellectuals, and political leaders. This thoroughly revised and updated second edition extends that work with a wealth of fresh material on a wide range of conceptual, historical, institutional, and policy issues.

"A useful compilation popularizing the work of an influential journal... "The Journal of Democracy "is an effective tribune for mainstream U.S. thinking on these issues."-- "Political Studies"

Although the score of countries comprising Russia's "near abroad" (the former non-Russian Soviet republics) and "far abroad" (the former non-Russian Warsaw Pact states) are behaving with variably increasing independence in their domestic and foreign policies, Russia continues to regard them as remaining within the same core-periphery sphere of influence formerly exerted by the Soviet Union within the same geographic space. Russia misinterprets bids by these countries to adopt liberalizing structural reforms and to join Euro-Atlantic organizations as foreign-inspired and inimical to Russia's security. Whether Russia can learn to recognize that such bids are in fact natural developments of national self-interest will determine whether healthy and mutually beneficial bilateral relations can develop between Russia and the states of her near and far abroad in the 21st century. No previous study of the dynamics of post-Soviet assertive sovereignty has as broad a geographic scope as Eurasia Rising, which considers the whole of Post-Soviet Space: DT Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine DT _ Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania DT Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia DT Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan DT Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia

This volume's coverage includes international agreements, both bilateral and multi-lateral, affecting shipping. The work includes: full texts of reservations or declarations made by bound countries; texts of draft treaties; texts of average adjusting rules for key jurisdictions; and texts of salvage agreements. Texts of treaties and documents are arranged by category: arbitration; carriage of goods and passengers by sea; collision, navigation and rescue; fishing and whaling; international maritime organization (IMO); limitation of liability; miscellaneous international trade; pollution at sea; procedure; regulation of maritime safety and commerce; salvage and general average; seamen; territorial waters and high seas; and war.

In a period where social unrest manifests itself by coinciding with young people's dissatisfaction with formal political involvement and the diversification of protest movements across the globe, the question of youth participation is at the forefront of democratic societies. This timely book offers a fresh look at youth participation: examining official and unofficial constructions of participation by young people in a range of socio-political domains, exploring the motivations and rationales underlying official attempts to increase participation among young people, and offering a critique of their effectiveness. Based on original research data, Youth participation in Europe provides a thorough analysis of participation initiatives at the implementation level and gives a transversal approach to various areas of youth participation. Drawing on examples from different European countries, it analyses the results of structure on youth participation and the effects of youth agencies on types of mobilisation.

Our society's institutional infrastructures--our democratic political system, economic structures, legal practices, and educational establishment--were all created as intellectual outgrowths of the Enlightenment. All our cultural institutions are based on the intellectual idea that an enlightened citizenry could govern its affairs with reason and responsibility. In the late 20th century, however, we are witnessing the disintegration of much of our cultural heritage. Wood argues that this is due to our evolution into a DEGREESUpost-intellectual society DEGREESR--a society characterized by a loss of critical thinking, the substitution of information for knowledge, mediated reality, increasing illiteracy, loss of privacy, specialization, psychological isolation, hyper-urbanization, moral anarchy, and political debilitation. These post-intellectual realities are all triggered by three underlying determinants: the failure of linear growth and expansion to sustain our economic system; the runaway information overload; and technological determinism. Wood presents a new and innovative social theory, challenging readers to analyze all our post-intellectual cultural malaise in terms of these three fundamental determinants.

Voting Rights: A Reference Handbook is a valuable resource for high school and college students curious about the history of voting rights in the United States. Voting Rights: A Reference Handbook chronicles voting rights in the United States, from the colonial period to the present. Following a historical overview is an examination of current controversies in addition to profiles of key persons and reprint important documents. The book also includes a perspectives chapter featuring ten original essays on various topics related to voting rights, as well as an annotated bibliography and chronology. The variety of resources provided, such as further reading, perspective essays about voting rights, a timeline, and useful terms in the voting rights discourse, allow this book to stand out from others in the field. It is intended for readers at the high school through community college levels, along with adult readers who are interested in the topic. Does not assume prior knowledge about the history of voting rights, fully informing students and other readers on the topic Seeks primarily to explain voting rights, rather than to provide advocacy or criticism Provides a balanced analysis of many of the current controversies surrounding voting rights Rounds out the authors' expertise in perspective essays that give readers a diversity of viewpoints on the topic

The Latin American Church is extremely significant in global Catholicism, accounting for a substantial percentage of the World s total Catholic population. Demonstrating remarkable vitality, the Latin American Church has played a major role in local political and social arenas, particularly during the transitions from military to democratic rule in Chile and Peru.

However, recent changes imposed by the Vatican may come to redefine the Chilean and Peruvian Church's involvement in politics and social issues. Professors Michael Fleet and Brian H. Smith argue that throughout the 1980s, the Vatican has been moving to restrict the Chilean and Peruvian Church's social and political activities, reimposing more hierarchical control on the local Church through the appointment of conservative bishops.

As all Catholics work to understand the Church within the context of the global community, The Catholic Church and Democracy in Chile and Peru deserves the attention of thinking Catholics throughout the world.

This volume is the first comprehensive analysis of a new type of executive instability without regime instability in Latin America referred to as "presidential breakdown." It includes a theoretical introduction framing the debate within the institutional literature on democracy and democratization, and the implications of this new type of executive instability for presidential democracies. Two comparative chapters analyze the causes, procedures, and outcomes of presidential breakdowns in a regional perspective, and country studies provide in-depth analyses of all countries in Latin America that have experienced one or several presidential breakdowns: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. The book also includes an epilogue on the 2009 presidential crisis in Honduras.

An analysis of the various challenges faced by police operating in different kinds of democracies. Through a cross-cultural comparison of the various systems, the work highlights the universal observation that police are an anomaly in a democracy. It examines how various influences - for example, large-scale social violence, a zeal for crime fighting, or vulnerability to temptation - often render the police incapable of behaving in a democratic manner. Chapters explore the experiences of police in emerging democracies (Estonia, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, the Russian Federation and Slovenia), established democracies (Austria, the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland), and mixed democracies (South Africa). The book analyzes the similarities and differences of the policing challenges democratic societies face as well as the responses and remedies adopted by police in various countries at different levels of democratic achievement.

Explores the fundamental shift that has occurred in America and Britain as elites accumulate unprecedented capital and influence and a meritocracy has emerged to manage national affairs, a change that means opportunity, affluence, and power have gravitated away from most of the population. Stoesz connects present and past to look at the progressive-era, the history of professions, and questions of welfare state reform, post-neoliberalism, and marketization.

Contents:
1. Introduction: aims and objectives Karl Cordell
2. Contemporary government attitudes towards the European Union Teresa Los-Nowak
3. Polish perceptions of the European Union in the 1990s Elzbieta Stadtmüller
4. Emergent democratic citizenship in Poland: a study of changing value patterns Kazimierz Dziubka
5. Political competition in Poland: traditionalisation or westernisation? Andrzej Antoszewski
6. Parties and the Polish party system: the process of structuring the political space Ryszard Herbut
7. The marketing of political parties in the 1990s: a comparative study Robert Wiszniowski
8. The Europeanisation of government in Poland in the 1990s Andrzej W. Jablonski
9. The reform of Polish local government, and the Europe of the regions Wieslaw Bokajlo
10. Poland, die Vertriebenen, and the road to integration with the European Union Tadeusz Lebioda
11. The European Union and Ukrainian-Polish relations Andrzej Dybczynski
12. Conclusion Karl Cordell

Encarnación makes the controversial argument that a strong civil society and social capital are not necessary to enhance either democratization or the stability of a new democracy. Tracing the development of the concept "civil society," he argues that what matters are the political institutions existing in a state and the strategies and decisions of political leaders. The importance of these are examined through careful case studies of Brazil, where a strong civil society was not critical in the transition to democracy and has not led to a robust democracy, and Spain, where a weak civil society neither prevented the transition nor strong democratic institutions.

Scholars offer clearly written coverage of the relationship between political parties and democracy in the Western Hemisphere. Political Parties and Democracy: Volume I: The Americas is the first volume in this five volume set. It offers clearly written, up-to-date coverage of the political parties of this diverse region 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 first studies political parties in the United States and Canada, with one chapter on each nation. It then discusses the realities on the ground in the Latin American nations of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. 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.

Direct democracy, or pure democracy, is a concept spreading throughout the world, now adopted by nearly 30 countries on the national level. While the concept is not new, it is important to investigate the current benefits or hinderances of direct democracy related to local governments so that they may be implemented further. Direct Democracy Practices at the Local Level deepens the knowledge of direct democracy in political science. This book explores how local governments utilize these instruments in international governments and analyzes a series of popular initiatives and local referenda to how successful these initiatives are. Covering topics such as religious rights, street committees, and climate change, this book is essential for political science students and professors, policymakers, faculty, local governments, academicians, and researchers in political science with an interest in direct democracy procedures in representative systems.