Comparing Liberal Democracies

Comparing Liberal Democracies PDF Author: Arthur B. Gunlicks
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1462057241
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
In this age of a globalism, understanding the governments and politics of other countries is important in understanding the world around us. In Comparing Liberal Democracies, author Arthur B. Gunlicks contributes to this understanding in a discussion of the institutional structures and backgrounds of four liberal or Western democracies: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the most state-like international organization, the European Union. Gunlicks provides a systematic and thematic (rather than country-by-country) approach that promotes comparisons of similarities and differences based on variables and concepts familiar to American and European students and the attentive publics in Europe and North America. After laying out a historical background, he explores liberal democratic, semi-democratic, and non-democratic states; territorial organization; presidential versus parliamentary political systems; separation of powers and checks and balances in these different political systems; electoral systems; legal systems; and the liberal democratic welfare state. A comprehensive core text, Comparing Liberal Democracies provides the background and concepts necessary for a better understanding of liberal democracies in general and of the American and major European democracies in particular.

Comparing Liberal Democracies

Comparing Liberal Democracies PDF Author: Arthur B. Gunlicks
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1462057241
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this age of a globalism, understanding the governments and politics of other countries is important in understanding the world around us. In Comparing Liberal Democracies, author Arthur B. Gunlicks contributes to this understanding in a discussion of the institutional structures and backgrounds of four liberal or Western democracies: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the most state-like international organization, the European Union. Gunlicks provides a systematic and thematic (rather than country-by-country) approach that promotes comparisons of similarities and differences based on variables and concepts familiar to American and European students and the attentive publics in Europe and North America. After laying out a historical background, he explores liberal democratic, semi-democratic, and non-democratic states; territorial organization; presidential versus parliamentary political systems; separation of powers and checks and balances in these different political systems; electoral systems; legal systems; and the liberal democratic welfare state. A comprehensive core text, Comparing Liberal Democracies provides the background and concepts necessary for a better understanding of liberal democracies in general and of the American and major European democracies in particular.

Political Leadership in Liberal Democracies

Political Leadership in Liberal Democracies PDF Author: Robert Elgie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1349242160
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
[A] compelling case for the institutional analysis of political leadership ... you must buy and read this book.' - R.A.W. Rhodes, Public Administration. '[A] valuable contribution not only to the study of political leadership, but also to the study of comparative politics.' - Valerie Mort, Talking Politics. Concentrating on the period since 1945, Political Leadership in Liberal Democracies examines the resources of and constraints on political leaders in contemporary political systems. The book compares six countries to assess the effectiveness of political leadership and its relationship to the nature of institutional structures and political environments. The author argues that while the leadership environment has become more constraining and difficult in recent years, the potential for effective leadership in liberal democracies has not been extinguished.

The UK's Changing Democracy

The UK's Changing Democracy PDF Author: Patrick Dunleavy
Publisher: LSE Press
ISBN: 1909890464
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.

Party Systems and Foreign Policy Change in Liberal Democracies

Party Systems and Foreign Policy Change in Liberal Democracies PDF Author: Angelos Chryssogelos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000287440
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
How do political parties affect foreign policy? This book answers this question by exploring the role of party politics as source of foreign policy change in liberal democracies. The book shifts the focus from individual political parties to party systems as the context in which parties’ ideologies receive precise content and their preferences are formed. The central claim is that foreign policy change arises from within transformed discursive contexts of party competition, when a new language of politics that constitutes anew parties’ self-understanding of what they stand for and compete over emerges in a party system. By comparing cases of contested foreign policy change, the book shows how such transformations in party competition determine whether and when international pressures on a state will translate into decisions to institute foreign policy change and what degree of change will be ultimately implemented. With a novel framework which bridges concepts of international relations and comparative politics, the book will be of interest to researchers and students in the areas of international relations theory, foreign policy analysis and comparative politics, and generally to anyone wanting to understand how and when parties, elections and voters contribute to international change.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Representation in Liberal Democracies

The Oxford Handbook of Political Representation in Liberal Democracies PDF Author: Robert Rohrschneider
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198825080
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 731

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Book Description
"How can democracies effectively represent citizens? The goal of this Handbook is to evaluate comprehensively how well the interests and preferences of mass publics become represented by institutions in liberal democracies. It first explores how the idea and institutions of liberal democracies were formed over centuries and became enshrined in Western political systems. The contributors to this Handbook, made up of the world's leading scholars on the various aspects of political representation, examine how well the political elites and parties who are charged with the representation of the public interest meet their duties. Clearly, institutions often fail to live up to their own representation goals. With this in mind, the contributors explore several challenges to the way that the system of representation is organized in modern democracies. For example, actors such as parties and established elites face rising distrust among electorates. Also, the rise of international problems such as migration and environmentalism suggests that the focus of democracies on nation states may have to shift to a more international level. All told, this Handbook illuminates the normative and functional challenges faced by representative institutions in liberal democracies"--

The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead

The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead PDF Author: Bernd Reiter
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1786603667
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Political representation and democracy are at odds and we need new models to organize politics without relying so heavily on elected representatives. Similarly, capitalism undermines markets, as the rich and wealthy shield their assets and make them untenable for average earners. Elitism thus undermines both democracy and markets and we need to devise ways to limit the power of professional politicians, as well as the asset holdings of the rich so that the goods they hold can re-enter general markets. A broad array of institutions and laws have been enacted in different places and at different times to block economic elitism and protect democratic self-rule. This book presents a number of such cases, historical as well as contemporary, where solutions to the problem of political and economic elitism have successfully been practiced. It then compares these cases systematically, to determine the common factors and hence the necessary conditions for ensuring, and protecting self-rule and equal opportunity. This book encourages the idea that alternatives to representative, capitalist democracy are possible and can be put to practice.

Imperfect Democracies

Imperfect Democracies PDF Author: Patti Tamara Lenard
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 077482378X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Canada and the United States are consistently ranked among the most democratic countries in the world, yet voices expressing concern about the quality of these democracies are becoming louder and more insistent. Critics maintain that the two countries suffer from a “democratic deficit,” a deficit that raises profound questions about the legitimacy and effectiveness of their democratic institutions. Imperfect Democracies brings together Canadian and American scholars to compare how the democratic deficit plays out in the two nations. An important contribution to the field of democratic theory and the study of democratic institutions, this timely book will spark debate on both sides of the border.

Reasonable Democracy

Reasonable Democracy PDF Author: Simone Chambers
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501722549
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
In Reasonable Democracy, Simone Chambers describes, explains, and defends a discursive politics inspired by the work of Jürgen Habermas. In addition to comparing Habermas's ideas with other non-Kantian liberal theories in clear and accessible prose, Chambers develops her own views regarding the role of discourse and its importance within liberal democracies.Beginning with a deceptively simple question—"Why is talking better than fighting?"—Chambers explains how the idea of talking provides a rich and compelling view of morality, rationality, and political stability. She considers talking as a way for people to respect each other as moral agents, as a way to reach reasonable and legitimate solutions to disputes, and as a way to reproduce and strengthen shared understandings. In the course of this argument, she defends modern universalist ethics, communicative rationality, and what she calls a "discursive political culture," a concept that locates the political power of discourse and deliberation not so much in institutions of democratic decision-making as in the type of conversations that go on around these institutions. While discourse and deliberation cannot replace voting, bargaining, or compromise, Chambers argues, it is important to maintain a background moral conversation in which to anchor other activities.As an extended case study, Chambers examines the conversation about language rights that has been taking place for more than twenty years in Quebec. A culture of dialogue, she shows, has proved a positive and powerful force in resolving some of the disagreements between the two linguistic communities there.

Comparing Political Regimes

Comparing Political Regimes PDF Author: Alan Siaroff
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781442600126
Category : Comparative government
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Instead of the typical disparate mixture of themes and/or countries, Siaroff offers a unified analysis. The text is clear, thoughtful and well-written, and contains a wealth of data including excellent original tables and figures." - Peter Kingstone, University of Connecticut

Political Leadership Between Democracy and Authoritarianism

Political Leadership Between Democracy and Authoritarianism PDF Author: Jerzy J. Wiatr
Publisher: Verlag Barbara Budrich
ISBN: 3847416936
Category : Political Science
Languages : de
Pages : 203

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Book Description
In diesem Buch wird die Theorie der politischen Führung, die ein noch wenig erforschtes Feld der Politikwissenschaft ist, beleuchtet. Sie ist verwandt mit dem philosophischen Streit um Determinismus versus Aktivismus und hilft den Grundkonflikt des 21. Jahrhunderts zwischen liberaler Demokratie und neuem Autoritarismus zu verstehen. Das Buch befasst sich mit Max Webers Typologie politischer Herrschaft und seinem Konzept der Verantwortungsethik, welche der Schlüssel zur Theorie der Führung sind. Der Autor zeigt auf, dass der unvollendete Wettstreit zwischen Demokratie und neuem Autoritarismus im 21. Jahrhundert die Bedeutung von Führung in alten und neuen Demokratien sowie in den neoautoritären Regimen bestätigt und einen neuen Typus politischer Führungskräfte fordert.