"Rethinking Popular Representation" starts out from the deep concern with contemporary tendencies towards depoliticization of public issues and popular interests. It is argued that the root cause of this is flawed representation, due to both elitist institution building and fragmented citizen participation. Hence the book makes a case for the need to rethink more democratic popular representation. Towards this end, the book outlines an overarching analytical framework for popular representation, examines key theoretical issues and empirical experiences of popular representation, and provides a policy-oriented conclusion.

Transformative democratic politics are necessary to the advance of substantive democratization. They are vital to the improvement of popular control over public affairs and for promoting economic growth and social welfare. In this diverse collection, the authors examine the political dynamics of democratization in the Global South, and the potential and problems of transformative strategies in new growth economies, as well as the benefits for post-clientelist transformations. If the contemporary challenge for democratization in the Global South is to substantiate formal and minimalist democracy, the contribution of this book is to point to the centrality of transformative democratic politics.

Assessing the Dynamics of Democratization grows out of attempts by academics and activists to contribute to transformative politics by building up more and better evidence, and analysing the processes of democratisation in a way that is theoretically more inclusive than in the mainstream assessments that have come to parallel the industry of measuring economic growth. The book summarises the critique of these mainstream assessments, proposes an alternative framework, and shows how the alternative works through a case study of the largest of the new democracies, Indonesia. It is a book for critical scholars, students and practitioners.

This book starts out from the deep concern with contemporary tendencies towards depoliticisation of public issues and popular interests and makes a case for rethinking more democratic popular representation. It outlines a framework for popular representation, examines key issues and experiences and provides a policy-oriented conclusion.

The book summarises the critique of these approaches, suggests a comprehensive alternative framework, and shows how the alternative works in reality through a case study of the largest of the new democracies, Indonesia.

Given the weaknesses of mainstream democratisation since the 1980s, the authors present a cutting edge examination of dynamics of political change in the direction of more substantive democracy. While focusing on the Global South, they also draw comparisons from historical and contemporary experiences from Scandinavia.