Democracy Imposed

How successful was the United States in attempting to impose a democratic system on Germany after the Second World War? Did U.S. occupation policy actually change German society and attitudes? In this book Richard L. Merritt addresses these questions from a novel perspective. Instead of studying what German political leaders and intellectuals thought about the U.S. occupation, Merritt explores for the first time the response of the ordinary German people, analyzing data from public opinion surveys conducted largely by the American Military Government beginning in 1945.

The introduction of consociational power sharing as a post-war political system has become one of the international community's preferred post-conflict devices. In situations where warring polities are internally divided by ethnic, religious, linguistic, or national identity, consociationalism guarantees the inclusion of all groups in the political process and prevents a ‘tyranny' of the majority over one or more minorities. However, if international actors keep intervening in the political process, the advantages of consociationalism are turned upside down.In this exceptional book, Adis Merdzanovic develops a theoretical and empirical approach to understanding consociational democracies that include external intervention. Using the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the consociational Dayton Peace Agreement ended the three-year war between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks twenty years ago, it elaborates on the different approaches used in the past and gives practical recommendations for future state-building exercises by the international community.

Presents a selection of questions and answers covering the principles of democracy, including human rights, free and fair elections, open and accountable government, and civil society.

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.

Freedom in the World is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The methodology of this survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories.

This is a manual for teachers in Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) and Human Rights Education (HRE), EDC/HRE textbook editors and curriculum developers. Nine teaching units of approximately four lessons each focus on key concepts of EDC/HRE. The lesson plans give step-by-step instructions and include student handouts and background information for teachers. In this way, the manual is suited for trainees or beginners in the teaching profession and teachers who are receiving in-service teacher training in EDC/HRE. The complete manual provides a full school year's curriculum for lower secondary classes, but as each unit is also complete in itself, the manual allows great flexibility in use. The objective of EDC/HRE is the active citizen who is willing and able to participate in the democratic community. Therefore EDC/HRE strongly emphasize action and task-based learning.

Principles to realization - Cherif Bassiouni