The Politics Of Democratization

A study that demonstrates how crucial civil society has been to democratic transition, democratic failure, and the recent, ongoing efforts to reform, deepen, and consolidate democracy in Korea.

There is a major contradiction in contemporary politics: there has been a wave of democratization that has swept across much of the world, while at the same time globalization appears to have reduced the social forces that have built democracy historically. This book, by an international group of authors, analyzes the ways in which local politics in developing countries - often neglected in work on democratization - render democratic experiments more or less successful in realizing substantial democracy.

'Democratization' is a concept often used in academic book titles, yet not many of them deal with the initial breakthrough of democratization. This research companion presents an alternative view to the widespread assumption that Western democracies should be the normative reference for the study of democratization elsewhere. Rather, it questions the universal validity of such an assumption by searching the history of European politics and by paying specific attention to the struggles of democratization accomplished outside Western Europe. The authors apply a comparative approach to analyzing debates in the primary sources in a number of countries and languages and situate the results into a broader European context. Focusing on European democratization from different historical and analytical perspectives, they discuss the politics, concepts and histories involved in democratization as a complex of changes that has altered the conditions of political action and debate in the continent for the past two centuries.

The explosive spread of democracy has radically transformed the international political landscape and captured the attention of academics, policy makers, and activists alike. With interest in democratization still growing, Nathan J. Brown and other leading political scientists assess the current state of the field, reflecting on the causes and diffusion of democracy over the past two decades. The volume focuses on three issues very much at the heart of discussions about democracy today: dictatorship, development, and diffusion. The essays first explore the surprising but necessary relationship between democracy and authoritarianism; they next analyze the introduction of democracy in developing countries; last, they examine how international factors affect the democratization process. In exploring these key issues, the contributors ask themselves three questions: What causes a democracy to emerge and succeed? Does democracy make things better? Can democracy be successfully promoted? In contemplating these questions, The Dynamics of Democratization offers a frank and critical assessment of the field for students and scholars of comparative politics and the political economy of development. Contributors: Gregg A. Brazinsky, George Washington University; Nathan J. Brown, George Washington University; Kathleen Bruhn, University of California at Santa Barbara; Valerie J. Bunce, Cornell University; José Antonio Cheibub, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Bruce J. Dickson, George Washington University; M. Steven Fish, University of California at Berkeley; John Gerring, Boston University; Henry E. Hale, George Washington University; Susan D. Hyde, Yale University; Craig M. Kauffman, George Washington University; Staffan I. Lindberg, University of Florida; Sara Meerow, University of Amsterdam; James Raymond Vreeland, Georgetown University; Sharon L. Wolchik, George Washington University

How postwar West German democracy was styled through word, image, sound, performance, and gathering

Do political leaders determine whether a polity will receive a democratic future or not? Research and advocates of democracy agree on the significance of political elites for democratization, yet there is a need for a more specific understanding of their role. This book develops a theory of political leadership at the point of nascent statehood to explain the emergence of resilient democracies. It employs four diverse case studies to examine the role of leadership and democratic consolidation. In doing so, the book identifies certain capacities of political leaders at the critical moment of nascent statehood as decisive to the future democratic quality of their state. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, democratization studies, state building, leadership, nationalism, Middle Eastern studies and South Asian studies.

Mobilizing for Democracy is an in-depth study into how ordinary citizens and their organizations mobilize to deepen democracy. Featuring a collection of new empirical case studies from Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, this important new book illustrates how forms of political mobilization, such as protests, social participation, activism, litigation and lobbying, engage with the formal institutions of representative democracy in ways that are core to the development of democratic politics. No other volume has brought together examples from such a broad Southern spectrum and covering such a diversity of actors: rural and urban dwellers, transnational activists, religious groups, politicians and social leaders. The cases illuminate the crucial contribution that citizen mobilization makes to democratization and the building of state institutions, and reflect the uneasy relationship between citizens and the institutions that are designed to foster their political participation.

Comprises 11 contributions exploring issues in the political finances of emerging democracies. The contributors look at funding issues in Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Spain, and the regions of east Asia and east-central Europe. Several contributors also explore what can be learned from the history of political finance in the established democracies of western Europe and North America. Of interest to students of political parties, electoral politics and democratization studies, as well as researchers and specialist observers of the countries and systems covered. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR