This is a review of democracy in the European Union. It deals with the two major challenges of interest articulation in the EU, political parties and lobbying; discusses how democracy becomes the key element in the linkage between the EU and its member states - using France, Italy and Belgium as examples; focuses on democratic aspects of key EU ......
The recent revival of democracy across much of the globe, and the fragility of many of the new regimes, has inspired renewed interest in the origins of dictatorship and democracy in modern times. Assembling renowned specialists on Eastern and Western Europe, the U.S., Latin America and Japan, The Social Construction of Democracy explores the ......
The rapid worldwide phase of democratisation since the 1980s has stimulated a renewed interest in how we define and measure democracy. In this wide-ranging volume, leading political theorists, political scientists and experts in comparative government from across Europe address the following questions: By what criteria is the level of a country's democracy to be assessed? How far is democracy subject to measurement and if so what kind of measurement and with what degree of precision? Can the same criteria or indices be applied to developing democracies and established ones? Are the standards used by Western scholars ethnocentric or universal? From questions of how to define democracy to the issue of cultural diversity, each chapter offers new insights and approaches placed in the context of contemporary debates. Defining and Measuring Democracy is essential reading for students and scholars of comparative politics and democracy.
Examines the implications of the resurgence of interest in community. This title deals with fundamental issues that divide liberals and communitarians, and also concerned with the structure of communities, the roles of freedom and democratic institutions in sustaining one another, and the contributions of feminist thinking to the great debate.
Mass Communication and the Disruption of Social Order
Intended for academics and students in media studies and political science, the authors of this book explore through a number of different contexts the way in which crises highlight the problematic issues of media performance in democratic states. They examine the relationship between communication and civil society through a number of actual cases of media responses to "crises", ranging from the Gulf War of 1991 to recent events in Eastern Europe. Individual examples of crises emphasize the complexities of understanding the role of the media in struggles of identity around nationality, ethnicity, and gender.
Traces the development of freedom and free societies from the earliest times, showing that an emphasis on social pluralism, on the rule of law, strong property rights, and on the value of the individual have traditionally led to constitutional government and eventually to democracy.
