Sunday, 21. February 2010
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Employing a framework that focuses on the actions and choices of elites in creating consolidated democracies, a distinguished group of scholars examines Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Without ignoring the roles of mass publics and institutions, the authors conclude that in independent states with long records of political instability and authoritarian rule, democratic consolidation requires the achievement of elite “consensual unity”–that is, agreement among all politically important elites on the worth of existing democratic institutions and respect for democratic rules-of-the-game, coupled with increased “structural integration” among those elites.
Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe
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Saturday, 20. February 2010
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Thoroughly grounded in Mexican history and based on extensive field research, this introduction examines the roots of Mexico’s contemporary political culture and its democratic transformation. Now in its fifth edition, Politics in Mexico has been completely updated and revised to cover the 2006 presidential elections. Featuring data from four recent major research projects, the book discusses the historical background and evolution of voter behavior responsible for sweeping Mr. Fox into office in 2000 and electing his successor in 2006. It analyzes the increasingly important role of Congress, and the relationship between Mexico and the United States. This edition features new data and tables based on original survey research that strengthens existing coverage of women, religion and politics, decision-making, political participation, citizen socialization, voter behavior, federalism, and electoral politics. Engagingly written by one of the top scholars in the field, Politics in Mexico is essential reading for students of Mexican or Latin American politics, comparative politics, and Mexican history.
Politics in Mexico: The Democratic Consolidation
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Friday, 19. February 2010
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Having undergone a transition from military authoritarian rule in 1987, Korea quickly became the most powerful democracy in East Asia other than Japan. But the onset of a major economic crisis revealed the dark side of the Korean model of democracy. With that crisis—and the subsequent election of the country’s most determined opposition figure as president—serious questions have arisen about the new democracy’s vitality.
Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea examines the problems and prospects of democracy in Korea a decade after the transition from military authoritarian rule, including the key factors shaping the quality and viability of Korean democracy. The authors evaluate the reform agenda of recent years and explain
- Why the current electoral system is deficient in producing an effective government
- How the current system of local government autonomy is in fact just a variation of past authoritarian central control—under the guise of democracy
- Why Korea will remain vulnerable to renewed economic crisis unless it can better address the fundamental structural flaws that hamper its economic competitiveness and the integrity of its financial system
- What steps have been taken to curtail the power of the deeply entrenched military, bureaucratic, and big business domination
- Why the National Assembly is neither autonomous nor capable of managing internal conflicts according to the rules of the democratic game
- How the Korean media moved out from under authoritarian government influence only to become diminished by a new commercialism and sensationalism
- How a new civic mobilization among the people has deepened democracy and contributed to democratic consolidation in Korea
- Why the previous government administration failed to prevent the economic crisis despite signs of troubled economic foundations
- What measures the new government should pursue to resolve the economic crisis and revive this once-prosperous democratic model
Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea presents a wide-ranging and balanced account of the political, economic, and cultural factors shaping Korean democracy and of the institutional reforms that are needed to deepen and consolidate this crucial experiment with democracy in East Asia.
Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea
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Wednesday, 17. February 2010
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Since their classic volume The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes was published in 1978, Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan have increasingly focused on the questions of how, in the modern world, nondemocratic regimes can be eroded and democratic regimes crafted. In Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, they break new ground in numerous areas. They reconceptualize the major types of modern nondemocratic regimes and point out for each type the available paths to democratic transition and the tasks of democratic consolidation. They argue that, although “nation-state” and “democracy” often have conflicting logics, multiple and complementary political identities are feasible under a common roof of state-guaranteed rights. They also illustrate how, without an effective state, there can be neither effective citizenship nor successful privatization. Further, they provide criteria and evidence for politicians and scholars alike to distinguish between democratic consolidation and pseudo-democratization, and they present conceptually driven survey data for the fourteen countries studied.
Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation contains the first systematic comparative analysis of the process of democratic consolidation in southern Europe and the southern cone of South America, and it is the first book to ground post-Communist Europe within the literature of comparative politics and democratic theory.
“This is an important volume by two major scholars on a central topic — one of broad interest to people in comparative politics, to those interested in democracy, and to regional specialists on Southern Latin America and on Central and Eastern Europe. The book will unquestionably be a major contribution to the literature on constructing democratic governance.” — Abraham F. Lowenthal, University of Southern California
Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe
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