Sunday, 21. March 2010
Product Description
In The Politics of Democratic Consolidation, a distinguished group of internationally recognized scholars focus on four nations of Southern Europe — Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece — which have successfully consolidated their democratic regimes. Contributors are P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, Richard Gunther, Hans-Jürgen Puhle, Edward Malefakis, Juan J. Linz, Alfred Stepan, Felipe Agüero, Geoffrey Pridham, Sidney Tarrow, Leonardo Morlino, José R. Montero, Gianfranco Pasquino, and Philippe C. Schmitter.
The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective
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Sunday, 21. February 2010
Product Description
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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Wednesday, 17. February 2010
Product Description
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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