This volume focuses on the issue of change in democratic politics in terms of experimental or actual innovations introduced either within political parties or outside the party system, involving citizen participation and mobilization. Including a wide and diverse range of alternatives in the organization of groups, campaigning, conducting initiatives and enhancing practices, they not only question the relevance of traditional institutions in representing citizens' values and interests, but also share a common goal which is precisely - and perhaps paradoxically - to reshape and invigorate representative democracy This book is of key interest to scholars and students of party politics, elections/electoral studies, social movement and democratic innovations and more broadly to comparative politics, political theory and political sociology.

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.

This book explores the implications of agonistic democratic theory for political practice. Fuat Gursoezlu argues that at a time when political parties exacerbate political division, political protesters are characterized as looters and terrorists, and extreme partisanship and authoritarian tendencies are on the rise, the agonistic approach offers a much-needed rethinking of political practice to critically understand challenges to democracy and envision more democratic, inclusive, and peaceful alternatives. Inspired by Chantal Mouffe's agonistic theory and drawing on insights of other prominent agonistic scholars, Gursoezlu offers a distinctive approach that develops the connections between the agonistic approach and political practice. His main claim is that approaching democratic politics from an agonistic perspective changes the way we understand the nature of democratic society, the place of political protest in democracy, the nature of adversarial engagement, and the democratic function of political parties. The book also advances an account of agonistic peace that is best fitted to the pluralistic and inherently conflictual nature of democratic societies. This book should be of interest to anyone working in the field of contemporary political theory, political philosophy, peace studies, and philosophy of peace.

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.

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

"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.

'The world's greatest public intellectual' Observer The essential guide to Chomsky and his brilliant ideas on the global state of affairs An extraordinary collection of Chomsky's speeches and his interviews with David Barsamian, edited by Arthur Naiman. With exceptional clarity and power of argument, Noam Chomsky lays bare as no one else can the realities of contemporary geopolitics. Including classic essays such as: * What Uncle Sam Really Wants: A dissection of US foreign policy * The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many: Examining the new global economy, food and the roots of racism * Secrets, Lies and Democracy: The CIA's actions in relation to religious fundamentalism, global inequality and the coming eco-catastrophe * The Common Good: unmissable writing on equality, freedom and the media ____________________________________________________________________________________________ 'One of the finest minds of the twentieth century' The New Yorker 'A rebel without a pause' Bono 'One of the greatest, most radical public thinkers of our time. When the sun sets on the American empire, as it will, as it must, Noam Chomsky's work will survive' Arundhati Roy

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.

How and to what degree have the radical right in Eastern Europe affected democratic quality? What is the relationship between the radical right's electoral strength, its coalition and blackmail potential and its impact? How do other parties respond if nationalism gains ground in a democracy? Depleting democracies explores these questions through the examples of three groups of countries where radical right parties are strong: Bulgaria and Slovakia; Hungary, Poland and Romania; and the Czech Republic and Estonia. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the book examines how radical right parties influenced mainstream parties' positions and public policy regarding vulnerable groups such as ethnic and national minorities and asylum-seekers between 2000 and 2016. It argues that by undermining the liberal values of equality and inclusiveness, they drive a process of depletion that fundamentally challenges democratic quality in the region. -- .

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"

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.

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.

An inquisitive socio-historical analysis of the long road Iran has traveled in quest of constitutionalism and democracy. The book explicates the paradox that after over a hundred years of struggle for freedom, the Iranian people currently have less of it than they did a hundred years ago at this time.

This book is a unique contribution to the study of democratization in Hong Kong, with chapters including the legal tradition in Hong Kong, the features of Hong Kong's indigenous democracy, the 2014 Umbrella Movement, and the evolution of the Chief Executive election.

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.

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.

Despite lacking any sort of military advantage over the regimes they have confronted, the Iranian people have never been dissuaded from rising against and challenging varying forms of injustice. Through the successful implementation of non-violent action Iranians have overcome the violence of successive governments by undermining their moral and political legitimacy. But more than a hundred years after the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, Iranians are still in search of a social covenant through which they can acquire and practice public freedom. The stakes are extremely high, if Iran fails to end its culture of violence as a state and society then it risks its future as a stable, democratic state. So how then can the Iranian people break the cycle of violent and oppressive regimes and start looking towards a non-violent and democratic future? There is no magic formula that will immediately end violence in Iran but this book argues that by shunning violence and showing a readiness to face down persecution that the Iranian people have a chance to secure their freedom.

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

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 assessment of the recent unprecedented Taiwanese democratic elections, which, despite threats from Beijing, set the stage for genuine democracy in Taiwan. A firsthand account of three crucial elections in the 1990s, two of which were unprecedented: the 1994 election of the first governor of Taiwan and the 1996 presidential election. The latter marked the first direct election of a chief executive in Taiwan or any Chinese nation in 5,000 years of Chinese history. This study considers the political environment in which these elections were held, particular political issues, party strategies and campaigns, and election results.

Taiwan is now in the final stage of democracy, and its impressive political modernization is one proof of its new status. The 1995 legislative election and the 1996 presidential election were held amidst Beijing's intimidation in the form of missile tests close to Taiwan's shores, massive military excercises, and verbal threats. Such posturing forced the United States to send aircraft carriers to the area in response. Taiwan's remarkable progress has begun to draw the attention of the leaders of developing countries who have come to see Taiwan's political modernization as a model for their own nations.

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.

How the Common Core standardizes our kids' education-and how it threatens our democracy. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is one of the most controversial pieces of education policy to emerge in decades. Detailing what and when K-12 students should be taught, it has led to expensive reforms and displaced other valuable ways to educate children. In this nuanced and provocative book, Nicholas Tampio argues that, though national standards can raise the education bar for some students, the democratic costs outweigh the benefits. To make his case, Tampio describes the history, philosophy, content, and controversy surrounding the Common Core standards for English language arts and math. He also explains and critiques the Next Generation Science Standards, the Advanced Placement US History curriculum framework, and the National Sexuality Education Standards. Though each set of standards has admirable elements, Tampio asserts that democracies should disperse education authority rather than entrust one political or pedagogical faction to decide the country's entire philosophy of education. Ultimately, this lively and accessible book presents a compelling case that the greater threat to democratic education comes from centralized government control rather than from local education authorities.

There could hardly be a more appropriate time in world history to be revisiting the issues of globalisation and democracy. After almost two centuries of what might be regarded as globalisation in the current usage of the term, has fallen into disrepute. Voters have used the ballot box to reject both the concept of globalisation and the mainstream parties that promoted it. The UK voted to leave the EU, in the 2016 'Brexit' referendum, and the US elected Donald Trump as President. This three-volume collection brings together the key writings on globalisation and democracy exploring the progression of globalisation as well as themes such as employment, international trade, technology and the environment amongst other important issues. This collection provides both scholarly and lay readers an opportunity to analyze how globalisation has impacted the world we live in today.