This book traces the twin processes of economic liberalization and political democratization in Bolivia since the 1980s placing both processes in their historical context. The essays focus on the issue of democratic viability, and raise broader questions of the relationship between democratization and its socio-economic context.

Why is the classical social democratic vision of development based on social justice by democratic means losing ground? Why was it so difficult to renew, even in the context of the third wave of democracy in the South? How does this matter in the North too, and how might it be reinvented? This accessible book brings to life major insights gained through written sources and interviews with a large range of activists and political protagonists in the southern cases of Indonesia, India, and the Philippines - but also in the northern social democratic stronghold of Sweden. By considering the experiences in view of the basics of Social Democracy and a broader comparative framework, Olle Toernquist arrives at globally relevant conclusions. Crucially, Toernquist also puts forward suggestions for how to achieve this reinvention social democracy. Through implementation of broad alliances in the Global South, supported by the Global North, for transformative rights and welfare reforms - universal, participatory and impartially implemented - precursors to social economic growth pacts can thus be effected.

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.

This book examines how opposition groups respond to the dilemma posed by authoritarian elections in the Arab World, with specific focus on Jordan and Algeria. While scholars have investigated critical questions such as why authoritarian rulers would hold elections and whether such elections lead to further political liberalization, there has been comparatively little work on the strategies adopted by opposition groups during authoritarian elections. Nevertheless, we know their strategic choices can have important implications for the legitimacy of the electoral process, reform, democratization, and post-election conflicts. This project fills in an important gap in our understanding of opposition politics under authoritarianism by offering an explanation for the range of strategies adopted by opposition groups in the face of contentious elections in the Arab World.

An excellent and entertaining essayist, Laski s volume deals with the issues of politics and law in Europe and American during the 1920s and 30s. It is unified by the concpetion of democracy as a society of equals sharing in a common good.

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This book examines the theoretical and practical relevance and challenges of the consociationalist model of democracy. Since the publication of the Politics of Accommodation (1968) and Democracy in Plural Societies (1977) Professor Lijphart's theories and practical implementations have played a key role in establishing enduring peace settlements. In this edited volume, scholars and Professor Lijphart himself critically examine the history of consocationalism and its application in areas including Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Colombia. The book will be essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students of political science, comparative politics, transitional justice and peace studies. It will also be of use to practitioners ranging from diplomats to NGOs who are interested in the practical application of tested models of political accommodation.

Radical Civility unearths civility's extraordinary potential by addressing why the virtue has fallen into crisis, recalling the injunctions that transpose utopia upon the stingy politics of likelihood, and by offering a vision of citizens who find purpose in dignifying each other. Jason Caro takes a three pronged approach; first identifying the effects of the misuse of civility, then expanding the meaning of civility, and finally offering applied examples of civility. Civility bears its participants to utopia. Such utopia has many forms: the politics of unlikelihood, the civil community, the ideal civility situation, or charmocracy. Unlike many studies of political manners, Caro embraces the relation between the virtue and politeness. Civility is then the effort to have politics charm. Caro draws out the full potential of the virtue by observing how such politeness is a particular mode of communicative action whereby participants are not merely exchanging face-saving gestures but constructing utopia. This radical stance raises the stakes of the debate on civility by setting the book implacably against realism and its politics of likelihood. It will appeal to those in the social sciences, cultural studies, social psychology, philosophy, communication, and peace studies.

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It is increasingly recognised that instead of relying on top-down commands or leaving individuals to their own devices, communities should be given a role in tackling challenges exacerbated by global crises. Written by a team of leading experts with in-depth knowledge and on-the-ground experience, this book sets out why and how people's lives can be positively transformed through diverse forms of community involvement. This book critically explores examples from around the world of how communities can become more collaborative and resilient in dealing with the problems they face, and provides an invaluable guide to what a holistic policy agenda for community-based transformation should encompass.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries on the globe. Subsistence agriculture remains at the very heart of its social fabric, and also lies at the root of its tremendous poverty. Yet while Malawi is among the worst performers in terms of per capita income and infant mortality, it is also a surprising leader in other areas (such as freedom of the press), has enjoyed over fifty years of relative stability since independence, and still holds great potential for economic development. Bringing together some of the leading experts on the country, this collection offers a comprehensive introduction to contemporary Malawi, encompassing its economy, culture, and politics. An invaluable resource for scholars and development professionals alike, the book assesses the root causes of Malawi’s impoverishment, and also offers insight into how the country might break out of its development impasse.

This book presents an analysis of five anticorruption agencies (ACAs) from Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia, exploring the impact of organisational factors and leadership on their enforcement patterns during the first decade of the transitional reforms (2001-2012). Contrary to the conventional theory of agency insulation, the analysis reveals that the ACAs' de facto autonomy was not crucially shaped by their statutory independence, but rather by the reputational management of their leaders. The book draws on a mixture of qualitative and quantitative analysis to document these reputational strategies and how they shaped the ACAs' de facto autonomy. The findings also suggest that that the ACAs' organisational model - defined by the delegated mandate and powers (preventative vs suppressive) - represented a key variable that mediated under which conditions high de facto autonomy can be achieved. The book offers contributions to the study of anticorruption policy and ethics regulation, as well as the wider inquiry into drivers of agency independence, particularly in transitional contexts.

This book seeks to understand the politics of nationalism in the buffer zone between Russia and the West: Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova, as well as Russia itself. It problematizes the official ways of defining the nation, and thus citizenship, in the light of "frozen" ethno-territorial conflicts and broader geopolitical discrepancies between Russia and the West. The author analyzes the politics of birthright citizenship policy in these countries and rejects the assumed connection between territorial nation-building and liberal democracy. The project will interest academics and graduate students in the fields of comparative and post-Soviet politics, nationalism, and citizenship, and international relations policy professionals.

This collection examines the continuities and changes that have set the Dominican political system apart from its Latin American counterparts over the last couple of decades. Whereas traditional political parties have lost support throughout Latin America, and electoral systems have devolved into illiberal democracies, Dominican democracy remains flawed but vibrant with a popular embrace of party politics. Across eight chapters a collection of subject experts argue that the Dominican case offers valuable lessons to understand that even though traditional political parties are endangered throughout the region, they are not going anywhere. The book analyzes topics including electoral politics, the quality of Dominican democracy, political parties, corruption, relations with Haiti and the United States, migration, the Dominican diaspora, gender and politics, social movements, and civil participation and citizenship, to reveal how the Dominican case proves that traditional political parties can adapt in order to survive, turning themselves into major sources of patronage, appealing to personalistic politics, and tinkering with the constitution in order to stay relevant. Dominican Politics in the Twenty First Century will be a vital resource for understanding contemporary Dominican politics. It will appeal to political scientists, Latin Americanists, and students of democracy, comparative politics, and electoral politics in general.

This book provides a bottom-up contribution to contemporary political and cultural theory, by presenting leisure activities as a democratic arena. Where much of the existing literature on leisure and play views participants as consumers, Kjolsrod presents these people as producers, who conduct micro-processes of social protection, become informed and skilled, and achieve influence via complex leisure. Through an in-depth analysis of a range of leisure practices, this book demonstrates where players belong in the political landscapes of modern democracies. Leisure as Source of Knowledge, Social Resilience and Public Commitment will be of interest to students and scholars of leisure, recreational, and cultural studies, as well as sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists studying identity construction, emerging social worlds, and novel channels of political participation in contemporary society.

The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance explores the concepts, methodologies, and implications of collective intelligence for democratic governance, in the first comprehensive survey of this field. Illustrated by a collection of inspiring case studies and edited by three pioneers in collective intelligence, this handbook serves as a unique primer on the science of collective intelligence applied to public challenges and will inspire public actors, academics, students, and activists across the world to apply collective intelligence in policymaking and administration to explore its potential, both to foster policy innovations and reinvent democracy. The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance is essential reading and an authoritative reference for scholars, students, researchers and practitioners of public policy, public administration, governance, public management, information technology and systems, innovation and democracy as well as more broadly for political science, psychology, management studies, public organizations and individual policy practitioners, public authorities, civil society activists and service providers.

This book strives to answer two interrelated questions: Why have certain states in the Americas been more successful than others at creating stable democratic regimes? Why have certain states in the Americas failed to create stable democratic regimes? To answer both questions, the author focuses on four states - the United States, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Throughout the analysis, he isolates and evaluates the conditions that helped or hindered the development of each state and of its political regime. He presents his conclusions in the form of time-related explanatory hypotheses. By identifying and examining the conditions that brought about the transformation of each states and of its political regimes, this study ultimately facilitates a discussion of the future of democracy in each of these countries as well as in the world.

When Bill Clinton declared in 1996 that "the era of big government is over," Republicans felt that he was stealing their thunder. But in fact, it was the culmination of a decade-long struggle for the heart and soul of the Democratic party. This book tells how a group of New Democrats reformed their enfeebled party's agenda, moved it toward the center, and recaptured the White House with their first two-term president since FDR.

"Reinventing Democrats" is the story of the Democratic Leadership Council, an elite group of elected officials, benefactors, and strategists that let fresh air into the smoke-filled room of politics and changed the public philosophy of their party. Kenneth Baer tells who they are, where they came from, what they believe in, and how they helped elect Bill Clinton--the DLC's former chairman--to the presidency.

Drawing on DLC archives and interviews with party insiders, Baer chronicles the increasing influence of the DLC from 1985 to the present. He describes battles waged between New Democrats and party liberals after the failed candidacy of Walter Mondale, and he takes readers behind the scenes in Little Rock to tell how DLC director Al From encouraged Clinton's run for the White House. He then explains how the DLC reshaped the party's agenda into a "third way" that embraced positions such as welfare reform, a balanced budget, free trade, a tough stance on crime, and a strong defense.

In this revealing analysis of insider politics, Baer shows how a determined faction can consciously change a party's public philosophy, even without the impetus of a national crisis or electoral realignment. He also shows that the New Democrat stance exemplifies how ideas can work in sync with the political calendar to determine which specific policies find their way onto the national agenda.

If Clinton has achieved nothing else in his presidency, says Baer, he has moved his party to the center, where it stands a better chance to succeed-much to the dismay of conservatives, who feel victimized by the theft of many of their strongest issues. In a book that will engage any reader caught up in the fervor of an election year, Baer reveals the role of new ideas in shaping political stratagems and provides much food for thought concerning the future of the New Democratic philosophy, the Democratic party, and American party politics.

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This book examines the public health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Asia-Oceania region and their implications for democratic backsliding in the period January 2020 to mid-2021. The contributions discuss three key questions: How did political institutions in Asia-Oceania create incentives for effective public health responses to the COVID-19 outbreak? How did state capacities enhance governments’ ability to implement public health responses? How have governance responses affected the democratic quality of political institutions and processes? Together, the analyses reveal the extent to which institutions prompted an effective public health response and highlights that a high-capacity state was not a necessary condition for containing the spread of COVID-19 during the early phase of the pandemic. By combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, the volume also shows that the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the quality of democratic institutions has been uneven across Asia-Oceania. Guided by a comprehensive theoretical framework, this will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of political science, policy studies, public health and Asian studies.

Enthusiasm has long been perceived as a fundamental danger to democratic politics, with many regarding it as a source of instability and irrationalism. Such views can make enthusiasm appear as a direct threat to the reason and order on which democracy is thought to rely. But such a desire for a sober and moderate democratic politics is perilously misleading and ignores the emotional basis on which democracy thrives. Enthusiasm in democracy works to help political actors identify and foster radical changes. We feel enthusiasm at precisely those moments of new beginnings, when politics takes on new shapes and structures. Being clear about how we experience enthusiasm, and how we recognize it, is thus crucial for democracy, which depends on the sharing of power and the alteration of rule. This book traces the shifting understanding of enthusiasm in modern Western political thought. Poe explores how political actors use enthusiasm to motivate allegiances, how we have come to think on the dangers of enthusiasm in democratic politics, and how else we might think about enthusiasm today. From its inception, democracy has relied on a constant affective energy of renewal. By tracing the way this crucial emotional energy is made manifest in political actions - from ancient times to the present - this book sheds light on the way enthusiasm has been understood by political scientists, philosophers, and political activists, as well as its implications for future democratic politics. -- .

This book builds a case for how social norms are neither mere conventions nor are they merely anthropological phenomena, which are relativistic. In other words, it talks about how socio-political norms are built out of our natural social behaviour but at the same time also have objective normative validity. The volume puts forth an alternative model called the recognitional model which can help us address some of the socio-political concerns we face in today's world. It addresses the problem with a purely legalistic framework of addressing social injustice is that law, due its universalistic assumptions, regarding human nature, tends to glide over the particular differences that might exist between people. This book discusses how we know that in our daily lives, we value people not only because that person is a legal human being but because that person is our father, mother, our teacher etc. There is a whole network of acts of social respect that we engage in with the other in our social sphere which the legal framework can't quite capture. This volume sheds light on the political consequence of legal reasoning is that it is formalistic in the sense that legal relations can't successfully codify the immediate epistemic context from which social identities emerge. An introspective work, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of linguistics, political philosophy, law and human rights, and social theory.

This Handbook analyzes elections in the Middle East and North Africa and seeks to overcome normative assumptions about the linkage between democracy and elections. Structured around five main themes, contributors provide chapters detailing how their case studies illustrate specific themes within individual country settings. Authors disentangle the various aspects informing elections as a process in the Middle East by taking into account the different contexts where the electoral contest occurs and placing these into a broader comparative context. The findings from this Handbook connect with global electoral developments, empirically demonstrating that there is very little that is “exceptional” about the Middle East and North Africa when it comes to electoral contests. Routledge Handbook on Elections in the Middle East and North Africa is the first book to examine all aspects related to elections in the Middle East and North Africa. Through such comprehensive coverage and systematic analysis, it will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in politics, elections, and democracy in the Middle East and North Africa.

Why do democracies fall apart, and what can be done about it? This book introduces students to the concept and causes of democratic decay in the modern world. Illustrating the integral link between public commitment to democratic norms and the maintenance of healthy democracies, it examines the key factors in decaying democracies, including: * Economic inequality; * Corruption; * Populist and authoritarian discourse; * Declining belief in political institutions and processes. Drawing on real-world developments, and including international case studies, the book outlines the extent to which there is a 'democratic recession' in contemporary politics and shows how transnational networks and technology are impacting on this development.

The nature of global governance is changing, as are the standards by which we judge its legitimacy. We are witnessing a gradual and partial shift from inter-state co-operation to more complex forms of governance, involving participation by transnational actors, such as NGOs, party associations, philanthropic foundations and corporations.

Democracy in Europe is about the impact of European integration on national democracies. It argues that the oft-cited democratic deficit is indeed a problem, but not so much at the level of the European Union per se as at the national level. This is because national leaders and publics have
yet to come to terms with the institutional impact of the EU on the traditional workings of their national democracies.
The book begins with a discussion of what the EU is-a new form of 'regional state' in which sovereignty is shared, boundaries are variable, identity composite, and democracy fragmented. It then goes on to examine the effects of this on EU member-states' institutions and ideas about democracy,
finding that institutional 'fit' matters. The 'compound' EU, in which governing activity is highly dispersed among multiple authorities, is more disruptive to 'simple' polities like Britain and France, where governing activity has traditionally been more concentrated in a single authority, than to
similarly 'compound' polities like Germany and Italy.
But the book concludes that the real problem for member-states is not so much that their practices have changed as that national ideas and discourse about democracy have not. The failure has been one of the 'communicative' discourse to the general public-which again has been more pronounced for
simple polities, despite their potentially greater capacity to communicate through a single voice, than for compound polities, where the 'coordinative' discourse among policy actors predominates.

This book posits that national education systems are enhancing socioeconomic inequalities in political engagement. While the democratic ideal is social equality in political engagement, the authors demonstrate that the English education system is recreating and enhancing entrenched democratic inequalities. In Europe, the UK has the strongest correlation between social background and voting behaviours. Examining the role of the school and the education system in the potential reproduction of these inequalities, the authors draw upon the theories of Bourdieu and Bernstein and compare the English school system to other European countries to analyse barriers that are put along the way to political engagement. In times of political disaffection, frustration and polarisation, it is particularly important to uncover why young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to engage politically, and to help inspire future generations to use their voice. This timely book will be of interest and value to students and scholars of educational inequality and political engagement.