Download or read book From the Democratic Deficit to a Democratic Surplus written by Athanasios Psygkas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the conventional narrative that the European Union suffers from a "democratic deficit," Athanasios Psygkas argues that EU mandates have enhanced the democratic accountability of national regulatory agencies. This is because EU law has created entry points for stakeholder participation in the operation of national regulators; these avenues for public participation were formerly either not open or not institutionalized to this degree. By focusing on how the EU formally adopted procedural mandates to advance the substantive goal of creating an internal market in electronic communications, Psygkas demonstrates that EU requirements have had significant implications for the nature of administrative governance in the member states. Drawing on theoretical arguments in favor of decentralization traditionally applied to substantive policy-making, this book provides insight into regulatory processes to show how the decentralized EU structure may transform national regulatory authorities into individual loci of experimentation that might in turn develop innovative results. It thus contributes to debates about federalism, governance and public policy, as well as about deliberative and participatory democracy in the United States and Europe. This book informs current understandings of regulatory agency operations and institutional design by drawing on an original dataset of public consultations and interviews with agency officials, industry and consumer group representatives in Paris, Athens, Brussels, and London. The on-the-ground original research provides a strong foundation for the directions the case law could take and small- and larger-scale institutional reforms that balance the goals of democracy, accountability, and efficiency.
Download or read book From the Democratic Deficit to a Democratic Surplus written by Athanasios Psygkas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the conventional narrative that the European Union suffers from a "democratic deficit," Athanasios Psygkas argues that EU mandates have enhanced the democratic accountability of national regulatory agencies. This is because EU law has created entry points for stakeholder participation in the operation of national regulators; these avenues for public participation were formerly either not open or not institutionalized to this degree. By focusing on how the EU formally adopted procedural mandates to advance the substantive goal of creating an internal market in electronic communications, Psygkas demonstrates that EU requirements have had significant implications for the nature of administrative governance in the member states. Drawing on theoretical arguments in favor of decentralization traditionally applied to substantive policy-making, this book provides insight into regulatory processes to show how the decentralized EU structure may transform national regulatory authorities into individual loci of experimentation that might in turn develop innovative results. It thus contributes to debates about federalism, governance and public policy, as well as about deliberative and participatory democracy in the United States and Europe. This book informs current understandings of regulatory agency operations and institutional design by drawing on an original dataset of public consultations and interviews with agency officials, industry and consumer group representatives in Paris, Athens, Brussels, and London. The on-the-ground original research provides a strong foundation for the directions the case law could take and small- and larger-scale institutional reforms that balance the goals of democracy, accountability, and efficiency.
Download or read book Report on the State of the European Union written by E. Laurent and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-12-19 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the fourth instalment of the 'Report on the state of the European Union' series. Its shows that if the EU does not want to be ruled by crisis any longer, it must invest in sustainability, political, economic, social and environmental. Europe must turn this elusive and ever-threatening 'crisis' into a chosen and meaningful transition.
Download or read book A Democratic Architecture for the Welfare State written by Victor A. Pestoff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-10-27 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The welfare state faces various challenges in Scandinavia and many European countries today, including a poor work environment in the public sector, a growing democracy deficit, and demographic obstacles. In this new book, Victor A. Pestoff argues that the state cannot resolve these challenges alone or together with the market, rather it requires the active participation of citizens and the third sector in order to overcome them and become more sustainable and flexible in the future. This book addresses the need for a more democratic architecture for the European welfare state, opening new perspectives for developing alternative channels for direct citizen participation at the sub-municipal level of governance. Pestoff finds that neither democratic theory nor welfare state theory devotes adequate attention to the contemporary role of the third sector as a service provider or to greater direct citizen participation in the provision of welfare services. He shifts the focus of analysis from the input to the output side of the political system and explores new ways to promote a greater role for the third sector and more citizen participation in the provision of universal, tax financed welfare services. Part 1 discusses social economy actors in Sweden and Scandinavia, both from a historical and future perspective. Part 2 explores major issues for the third sector and welfare state, including the allocation of an organization’s surplus or profit, work environment and service quality in public services and the third sector, consumer perspectives on the social economy, democratizing medical and health care in Japan, and co-production of childcare services in eight European countries. Part 3 revisits the third sector and state in democratic theory and welfare theory, as well as recognizing major hurdles to the third sector and democratization of the welfare state. Part 4 concludes by summarizing the politics of participation in the welfare state.
Download or read book Alternatives to Neoliberalism written by Bryn Jones and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2017-02-08 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection, innovative and eminent social and policy analysts, including Colin Crouch, Anna Coote, Grahame Thompson and Ted Benton, challenge the failing but still dominant ideology and policies of neo-liberalism. The editors synthesise contributors’ ideas into a revised framework for social democracy; rooted in feminism, environmentalism, democratic equality and market accountability to civil society. This constructive and stimulating collection will be invaluable for those teaching, studying and campaigning for transformative political, economic and social policies.
Download or read book Comparative Politics and Government of the Baltic States written by D. Auers and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the development of the political institutions, electoral systems, parties, civil society, economic and social policies and foreign affairs of the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania over the last quarter century.
Download or read book The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy written by Philip N. Howard and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-21 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around the developing world, political leaders face a dilemma: the very information and communication technologies that boost economic fortunes also undermine power structures. Globally, one in ten internet users is a Muslim living in a populous Muslim community. In these countries, young people are developing political identities online, and digital technologies are helping civil society build systems of political communication independent of the state and beyond easy manipulation by cultural or religious elites. With unique data on patterns of media ownership and technology use, The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy demonstrates how, since the mid-1990s, information technologies have had a role in political transformation. Democratic revolutions are not caused by new information technologies. But in the Muslim world, democratization is no longer possible without them.
Download or read book Political Order and Political Decay written by Francis Fukuyama and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume of the bestselling landmark work on the history of the modern state Writing in The Wall Street Journal, David Gress called Francis Fukuyama's Origins of Political Order "magisterial in its learning and admirably immodest in its ambition." In The New York Times Book Review, Michael Lind described the book as "a major achievement by one of the leading public intellectuals of our time." And in The Washington Post, Gerard DeGrott exclaimed "this is a book that will be remembered. Bring on volume two." Volume two is finally here, completing the most important work of political thought in at least a generation. Taking up the essential question of how societies develop strong, impersonal, and accountable political institutions, Fukuyama follows the story from the French Revolution to the so-called Arab Spring and the deep dysfunctions of contemporary American politics. He examines the effects of corruption on governance, and why some societies have been successful at rooting it out. He explores the different legacies of colonialism in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and offers a clear-eyed account of why some regions have thrived and developed more quickly than others. And he boldly reckons with the future of democracy in the face of a rising global middle class and entrenched political paralysis in the West. A sweeping, masterful account of the struggle to create a well-functioning modern state, Political Order and Political Decay is destined to be a classic.
Download or read book The Lexus and the Olive Tree written by Thomas L. Friedman and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2000 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of globalisation as an international system that today directly or indirectly influences the politics, environment, geopolitics and economics of virtually every country in the world.
Download or read book Financial Crisis Management and Democracy written by Bettina De Souza Guilherme and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-09 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book discusses financial crisis management and policy in Europe and Latin America, with a special focus on equity and democracy. Based on a three-year research project by the Jean Monnet Network, this volume takes an interdisciplinary, comparative approach, analyzing both the role and impact of the EU and regional organizations in Latin America on crisis management as well as the consequences of crisis on the process of European integration and on Latin America’s regionalism. The book begins with a theoretical introduction, exploring the effects of the paradigm change on economic policies in Europe and in Latin America and analyzing key systemic aspects of the unsustainability of the present economic system explaining the global crises and their interconnections. The following chapters are divided into sections. The second section explores aspects of regional governance and how the economic and financial crises were managed on a macro level in Europe and Latin America. The third and fourth sections use case studies to drill down to the impact of the crises at the national and regional levels, including the emergence of political polarization and rise in populism in both areas. The last section presents proposals for reform, including the transition from finance capitalism to a sustainable real capitalism in both regions and at the inter-regional level of EU-LAC relations.The volume concludes with an epilogue on financial crises, regionalism, and domestic adjustment by Loukas Tsoukalis, President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). Written by an international network of academics, practitioners and policy advisors, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students interested in macroeconomics, comparative regionalism, democracy, and financial crisis management as well as politicians, policy advisors, and members of national and regional organizations in the EU and Latin America.
Download or read book The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies written by Diana Kapiszewski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 587 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Democracy at Work written by Richard Wolff and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What, and who, are we working for? A thoughtful assessment on our current society from “probably America’s most prominent Marxist economist” (The New York Times). Capitalism as a system has spawned deepening economic crisis alongside its bought-and-paid-for political establishment. Neither serves the needs of our society. Whether it is secure, well-paid, and meaningful jobs or a sustainable relationship with the natural environment that we depend on, our society is not delivering the results people need and deserve. One key cause for this intolerable state of affairs is the lack of genuine democracy in our economy as well as in our politics. The solution requires the institution of genuine economic democracy, starting with workers managing their own workplaces, as the basis for a genuine political democracy. Here Richard D. Wolff lays out a hopeful and concrete vision of how to make that possible, addressing the many people who have concluded economic inequality and politics as usual can no longer be tolerated and are looking for a concrete program of action. “Wolff’s constructive and innovative ideas suggest new and promising foundations for much more authentic democracy and sustainable and equitable development, ideas that can be implemented directly and carried forward. A very valuable contribution in troubled times.” —Noam Chomsky, leading public intellectual and author of Hope and Prospects
Download or read book The Federal Budget written by Allen Schick and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2008-05-31 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The federal budget impacts American policies both at home and abroad, and recent concern over the exploding budgetary deficit has experts calling our nation's policies "unsustainable" and "system-dooming." As the deficit continues to grow, will America be fully able to fund its priorities, such as an effective military and looking after its aging population? In this third edition of his classic book The Federal Budget, Allen Schick examines how surpluses projected during the final years of the Clinton presidency turned into oversized deficits under George W. Bush. In his detailed analysis of the politics and practices surrounding the federal budget, Schick addresses issues such as the collapse of the congressional budgetary process and the threat posed by the termination of discretionary spending caps. This edition updates and expands his assessment of the long-term budgetary outlook, and it concludes with a look at how the nation's deficit will affect America now and in the future. "A clear explanation of the federal budget... [Allen Schick] has captured the politics of federal budgeting from the original lofty goals to the stark realities of today."—Pete V. Domenici, U.S. Senate
Download or read book Running on Empty written by Peter G. Peterson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As George Bush Plans to Borrow Trillions in Order to "Save" Social Security and as Congress ponders endlessly rising deficit projections, Peter Peterson offers a crucial warning and a manifesto. Acclaimed by all sides of the political spectrum, and required reading for everyone concerned with America's long-term economic survival, Running on Empty outlines what we must do to ensure our children's economic future and calls on the Bush administration to confront a deep and disturbing problem that politicians of all parties have insisted on ignoring for too long. Book jacket.
Download or read book Europe s Functional Constitution written by Turkuler Isiksel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constitutionalism has become a byword for legitimate government, but is it fated to lose its relevance as constitutional states relinquish power to international institutions? This book evaluates the extent to which constitutionalism, as an empirical idea and normative ideal, can be adapted to institutions beyond the state by surveying the sophisticated legal and political system of the European Union. Having originated in a series of agreements between states, the EU has acquired important constitutional features like judicial review, protections for individual rights, and a hierarchy of norms. Nonetheless, it confounds traditional models of constitutional rule to the extent that its claim to authority rests on the promise of economic prosperity and technocratic competence rather than on the democratic will of citizens. Critically appraising the European Union and its legal system, this book proposes the idea of "functional constitutionalism" to describe this distinctive configuration of public power. Although the EU is the most advanced instance of functional constitutionalism to date, understanding this pragmatic mode of constitutional authority is essential for assessing contemporary international economic governance.
Download or read book And the Weak Suffer What They Must written by Yanis Varoufakis and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-04-07 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER** The most recognisable economist on the planet, Yanis Varoufakis, puts forth his case to reform an EU that currently fails it weakest citizens. In this startling account of Europe’s economic rise and catastrophic fall, Varoufakis pinpoints the flaws in the European Union’s design – a design thought up after the Second World War, and one responsible for Europe’s fragmentation and resurgence of racist extremism. When the financial crisis struck in 2008, the political elite’s response ensured it would be the weakest citizens of the weakest nations that paid the price for the bankers’ mistakes. Drawing on his personal experience of negotiations with the eurozone’s financiers, and offering concrete policies to reform Europe, the former finance minister of Greece shows how we concocted this mess and points our way out of it. And The Weak Suffer What They Must? highlights our history to tell us what we must do to save European capitalism and democracy from the abyss. With the future of Europe under intense scrutiny after Brexit, this is the must-read book to explain Europe's structural flaws and how to fix them. 'If you ever doubt what is at stake in Europe - read Varoufakis's account' Guardian
Download or read book Failed States written by Noam Chomsky and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2007-04-03 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's foremost critic of U.S. foreign policy exposes the hollow promises of democracy in American actions abroad—and at home The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene against "failed states" around the globe. In this much anticipated sequel to his international bestseller Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky turns the tables, charging the United States with being a "failed state," and thus a danger to its own people and the world. "Failed states" Chomsky writes, are those "that do not protect their citizens from violence and perhaps even destruction, that regard themselves as beyond the reach of domestic or international law, and that suffer from a ‘democratic deficit,' having democratic forms but with limited substance." Exploring recent U.S. foreign and domestic policies, Chomsky assesses Washington's escalation of the nuclear risk; the dangerous consequences of the occupation of Iraq; and America's self-exemption from international law. He also examines an American electoral system that frustrates genuine political alternatives, thus impeding any meaningful democracy. Forceful, lucid, and meticulously documented, Failed States offers a comprehensive analysis of a global superpower that has long claimed the right to reshape other nations while its own democratic institutions are in severe crisis, and its policies and practices have recklessly placed the world on the brink of disaster. Systematically dismantling America's claim to being the world's arbiter of democracy, Failed States is Chomsky's most focused—and urgent—critique to date.
