Democracy Under Stress

DEMOCRACY UNDER STRESS focuses on the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and its implications for democracy. Why and how did the crisis come about? Are there any instructive lessons to be drawn from comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s? What are the democratic response mechanisms to cope with serious crises? Do they work? Is China a new trend setter? Do values matter? Are global democratic rules a possibility? These are some of the key questions addressed in the volume.

Constitutional democracy is not just any old form of democracy. It has a peculiar logic and is premised upon some exacting criteria and principles including good laws and institutions predicated on specific fundamental core values and principles. But it is, when fully ingrained in the public sensibility, a sort of civic serum necessary to inoculate free citizens against the ravages of anti-democratic populism, authoritarianism, racism, nativism, discrimination, xenophobia, corruption, self-dealing, and much worse. The need for civic inoculation of that sort is urgent today, globally. The essays in this volume probe the sources and malaise now confronting Constitutional Democracy. However, they go muchfurther. Many of the essays are, indeed, road-maps for a realistic and cultivated response to our present condition. The clues for a rehabilitated democracy are found here analytically but also prescriptively.

This book focuses on the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and its implications for democracy. Why and how did the crisis come about? Are there any instructive lessons to be drawn from comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s? What are the democratic response mechanisms to cope with serious crises? Do they work? Is China a new trend setter? Do values matter? Are global democratic rules a possibility? These are some of the key questions addressed in the volume. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

The seriousness of the crisis became evident with two abortive military coups in 1992 and the suspension of Carlos Andres Perez's presidential term in 1994.

The authors explore the increasing ungovernmability of the Jewish state, its obsolete electoral system and cynical coalition politics, its overburdened judiciary, its stagnant economy, and related issues. While highly critical, they present the most comprehensive effort to date to provide a scholarly foundation for political reform in Israel.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for governments to generate the necessary capacity to address important security and institutional challenges; this volume deepens our understanding of the nature and extent of state governance in Latin America. State capacity is multidimensional, with all elements interacting to produce stable governance and security. As such, a collection of scholars and practitioners use an explicit interdisciplinary approach, drawing on the contributions of history, political science, economics, public policy, military studies, and other fields to gain a rounded understanding of the link between security and democracy. Democracy and Security in Latin America is divided in two sections: Part 1 focuses on the challenges to governance and key institutions such as police, courts, armed forces. and the prison system. Part 2 features country case studies that illustrate particularly important security challenges and various means by which the state has confronted them. Democracy and Security in Latin America should appeal not only to those seeking to learn more about the capacity of the democratic state in Latin America to effectively provide public security in times of stress, but to all those curious about the reality that a democracy must have security to function.