Contemporary Oligarchies in Developed Democracies

Contemporary Oligarchies in Developed Democracies PDF Author: Shelly Gottfried
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030141055
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
The book analyzes concentrations of wealth and power in developed democracies. It shows that economic measures, which states adopted during the 1980s and 1990s, had evolved first into liberal oligarchy, and later, after the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, into illiberal and populist oligarchy. The shape and content of these two kinds of oligarchy have been determined largely because of practices and political strategies that powerful state and market actors employed. This project will appeal to a wide audience including academics, researchers, students, and anyone who is interested in oligarchy political power, IR, political economy, and sociology.

Contemporary Oligarchies in Developed Democracies

Contemporary Oligarchies in Developed Democracies PDF Author: Shelly Gottfried
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030141055
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
The book analyzes concentrations of wealth and power in developed democracies. It shows that economic measures, which states adopted during the 1980s and 1990s, had evolved first into liberal oligarchy, and later, after the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, into illiberal and populist oligarchy. The shape and content of these two kinds of oligarchy have been determined largely because of practices and political strategies that powerful state and market actors employed. This project will appeal to a wide audience including academics, researchers, students, and anyone who is interested in oligarchy political power, IR, political economy, and sociology.

Beyond Oligarchy

Beyond Oligarchy PDF Author: Michele Ford
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501719157
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Beyond Oligarchy is a collection of essays by leading scholars of contemporary Indonesian politics and society, each addressing effects of material inequality on political power and contestation in democratic Indonesia. The contributors assess how critical concepts in the study of politics—oligarchy, inequality, power, democracy, and others—can be used to characterize the Indonesian case, and in turn, how the Indonesian experience informs conceptual and analytical debates in political science and related disciplines. In bringing together experts from around the world to engage with these themes, Beyond Oligarchy reclaims a tradition of focused intellectual debate across scholarly communities in Indonesian studies. The collapse of Indonesia's New Order has proven a critical juncture in Indonesian political studies, launching new analyses about the drivers of regime change and the character of Indonesian democracy. It has also prompted a new groundswell of theoretical reflection among Indonesianists on concepts such as representation, competition, power, and inequality. As such, the onset of Indonesia’s second democratic period represents more than just new point of departure for comparative analyses of Indonesia as a democratizing state; it has also served as a catalyst for theoretical and conceptual development.

Political Parties; a Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy

Political Parties; a Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy PDF Author: Robert Michels
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781230419121
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY. THE CLASS STRUGGLE AND ITS DISINTEGRATING INFLUENCE UPON THE BOURGEOISIE The masses are not easily stirred. Great events pass before their eyes and revolutions are accomplished in economic life without their minds' undergoing profound modifications. Very slowly do they react to the influence of new conditions. For decades, and even for centuries, the masses continue to endure passively outworn political conditions which greatly impede legal and moral progress.1 Countries which from the economic point of view are fairly well advanced, often continue to endure for lengthy periods a political and constitutional regime which derives from an earlier economic phase. This is especially noteworthy in Germany, where an aristocratic and feudal form of government, the outcome of economic conditions which the country has outlived, has not yet been able to adapt itself to an economic development of the most advanced capitalist character. These historical phenomena, which at first sight appear paradoxical, arise from causes of two different orders. In the first place it may happen that classes or sub-classes representing an extinct economic form may survive from a time in which they were the authentic exponents of the then dominant economic relationships; they have been able to save from the wreck a sufficiency of moral prestige and effective political force to maintain their dominion in the new phase of economic and civil development, and to do this even in opposition to the expressed will of the majority of the people. These classes succeed in maintain 1' Unreflectingly, sometimes with a sigh, but often without a thought of the possibility of better things, the nations have borne for centuries, and continue to bear, all the...

On Oligarchy

On Oligarchy PDF Author: David Edward Tabachnick
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442640111
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
"Economic power is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few, even as democratic movements worldwide allow for political power to be dispersed among the many. With their access to influence, the wealthy can shape and constrain the political power of the rest of the world. As the economic dominance of an elite minority coincides with the forces of globalization, is oligarchy becoming the dominant political regime? This collection explores the renewed relevance of oligarchy to contemporary global politics. By drawing out lessons from classic texts, contributors illustrate how the character of oligarchical regimes informs contemporary political life. Topics include the relationship between the American government and corporations, the tension between republican and oligarchical regimes, and the potential conflicts that have opened up between economic management and political life. On Oligarchy deftly illuminates the significance of this regime in the context of pressing global economic and political issues."--Publisher's website.

Classical Greek Oligarchy

Classical Greek Oligarchy PDF Author: Matthew Simonton
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691192057
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Classical Greek Oligarchy thoroughly reassesses an important but neglected form of ancient Greek government, the "rule of the few." Matthew Simonton challenges scholarly orthodoxy by showing that oligarchy was not the default mode of politics from time immemorial, but instead emerged alongside, and in reaction to, democracy. He establishes for the first time how oligarchies maintained power in the face of potential citizen resistance. The book argues that oligarchs designed distinctive political institutions—such as intra-oligarchic power sharing, targeted repression, and rewards for informants—to prevent collective action among the majority population while sustaining cooperation within their own ranks. To clarify the workings of oligarchic institutions, Simonton draws on recent social science research on authoritarianism. Like modern authoritarian regimes, ancient Greek oligarchies had to balance coercion with co-optation in order to keep their subjects disorganized and powerless. The book investigates topics such as control of public space, the manipulation of information, and the establishment of patron-client relations, frequently citing parallels with contemporary nondemocratic regimes. Simonton also traces changes over time in antiquity, revealing the processes through which oligarchy lost the ideological battle with democracy for legitimacy. Classical Greek Oligarchy represents a major new development in the study of ancient politics. It fills a longstanding gap in our knowledge of nondemocratic government while greatly improving our understanding of forms of power that continue to affect us today.

Oligarchy

Oligarchy PDF Author: Jeffrey A. Winters
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113949564X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
For centuries, oligarchs were viewed as empowered by wealth, an idea muddled by elite theory early in the twentieth century. The common thread for oligarchs across history is that wealth defines them, empowers them and inherently exposes them to threats. The existential motive of all oligarchs is wealth defense. How they respond varies with the threats they confront, including how directly involved they are in supplying the coercion underlying all property claims and whether they act separately or collectively. These variations yield four types of oligarchy: warring, ruling, sultanistic and civil. Moreover, the rule of law problem in many societies is a matter of taming oligarchs. Cases studied in this book include the United States, ancient Athens and Rome, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, medieval Venice and Siena, mafia commissions in the United States and Italy, feuding Appalachian families and early chiefs cum oligarchs dating from 2300 BCE.

Crafty Oligarchs, Savvy Voters

Crafty Oligarchs, Savvy Voters PDF Author: Shandana Khan Mohmand
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108678203
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
How does democracy empower marginalized voters under conditions of inequality? The author probes into this question grounding her research in the context of Pakistan, an emerging democracy whose voters have actively been involved in defining its political history but about whom we know very little. They turn up in sizeable numbers to vote during elections, even under military rule, prompting all kinds of contradictory stereotypes about how Pakistani rural voters behave as electoral cannon fodder. But no one has looked very closely at why they vote as they do, or why they vote at all when their political agency is severely limited by high socio-economic inequality. By using original data collected across different villages and households in rural Pakistan, this book finds that electoral politics enables even the most marginalized voters to strategically further their interests vis-à-vis elite groups, but that persistent inequality limits their ability to organize or compete.

The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies

The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies PDF Author: Diana Kapiszewski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110890159X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 587

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Book Description
Latin American states took dramatic steps toward greater inclusion during the late twentieth and early twenty-first Centuries. Bringing together an accomplished group of scholars, this volume examines this shift by introducing three dimensions of inclusion: official recognition of historically excluded groups, access to policymaking, and resource redistribution. Tracing the movement along these dimensions since the 1990s, the editors argue that the endurance of democratic politics, combined with longstanding social inequalities, create the impetus for inclusionary reforms. Diverse chapters explore how factors such as the role of partisanship and electoral clientelism, constitutional design, state capacity, social protest, populism, commodity rents, international diffusion, and historical legacies encouraged or inhibited inclusionary reform during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Featuring original empirical evidence and a strong theoretical framework, the book considers cross-national variation, delves into the surprising paradoxes of inclusion, and identifies the obstacles hindering further fundamental change.

Politics and the Environment in Eastern Europe

Politics and the Environment in Eastern Europe PDF Author: Eszter Krasznai Kovacs
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1800641354
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Europe remains divided between east and west, with differences caused and worsened by uneven economic and political development. Amid these divisions, the environment has become a key battleground. The condition and sustainability of environmental resources are interlinked with systems of governance and power, from local to EU levels. Key challenges in the eastern European region today include increasingly authoritarian forms of government that threaten the operations and very existence of civil society groups; the importation of locally-contested conservation and environmental programmes that were designed elsewhere; and a resurgence in cultural nationalism that prescribes and normalises exclusionary nation-building myths. This volume draws together essays by early-career academic researchers from across eastern Europe. Engaging with the critical tools of political ecology, its contributors provide a hitherto overlooked perspective on the current fate and reception of ‘environmentalism’ in the region. It asks how emergent forms of environmentalism have been received, how these movements and perspectives have redefined landscapes, and what the subtler effects of new regulatory regimes on communities and environment-dependent livelihoods have been. Arranged in three sections, with case studies from Czechia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Serbia, this collection develops anthropological views on the processes and consequences of the politicisation of the environment. It is valuable reading for human geographers, social and cultural historians, political ecologists, social movement and government scholars, political scientists, and specialists on Europe and European Union politics.

Democracy Incorporated

Democracy Incorporated PDF Author: Sheldon S. Wolin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178488
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. Now with a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges, Democracy Incorporated remains an essential work for understanding the state of democracy in America.