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Book Monitoring Democracy

Download or read book Monitoring Democracy written by Judith G. Kelley and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-25 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, governments and NGOs--in an effort to promote democracy, freedom, fairness, and stability throughout the world--have organized teams of observers to monitor elections in a variety of countries. But when more organizations join the practice without uniform standards, are assessments reliable? When politicians nonetheless cheat and monitors must return to countries even after two decades of engagement, what is accomplished? Monitoring Democracy argues that the practice of international election monitoring is broken, but still worth fixing. By analyzing the evolving interaction between domestic and international politics, Judith Kelley refutes prevailing arguments that international efforts cannot curb government behavior and that democratization is entirely a domestic process. Yet, she also shows that democracy promotion efforts are deficient and that outside actors often have no power and sometimes even do harm. Analyzing original data on over 600 monitoring missions and 1,300 elections, Kelley grounds her investigation in solid historical context as well as studies of long-term developments over several elections in fifteen countries. She pinpoints the weaknesses of international election monitoring and looks at how practitioners and policymakers might help to improve them.

Book Monitoring Democracy

Download or read book Monitoring Democracy written by Judith G. Kelley and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-25 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, governments and NGOs--in an effort to promote democracy, freedom, fairness, and stability throughout the world--have organized teams of observers to monitor elections in a variety of countries. But when more organizations join the practice without uniform standards, are assessments reliable? When politicians nonetheless cheat and monitors must return to countries even after two decades of engagement, what is accomplished? Monitoring Democracy argues that the practice of international election monitoring is broken, but still worth fixing. By analyzing the evolving interaction between domestic and international politics, Judith Kelley refutes prevailing arguments that international efforts cannot curb government behavior and that democratization is entirely a domestic process. Yet, she also shows that democracy promotion efforts are deficient and that outside actors often have no power and sometimes even do harm. Analyzing original data on over 600 monitoring missions and 1,300 elections, Kelley grounds her investigation in solid historical context as well as studies of long-term developments over several elections in fifteen countries. She pinpoints the weaknesses of international election monitoring and looks at how practitioners and policymakers might help to improve them.

Book Beyond Free and Fair

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eric Bjornlund
  • Publisher : Woodrow Wilson Center Press
  • Release : 2004-11-02
  • ISBN : 0801880483
  • Pages : 407 pages

Download or read book Beyond Free and Fair written by Eric Bjornlund and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 2004-11-02 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Book Monitoring Democracy

Download or read book Monitoring Democracy written by Judith Green Kelley and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This probing, nuanced, and insightful analysis of international election monitoring splendidly illuminates and assesses a key area of international democracy support. The book's conclusions about the mixed utility and many dilemmas of election monitoring are persuasive and deserve wide attention. Extra kudos to Judith Kelley for providing an all-too-rare example of sophisticated, rigorous political science methods being brought to bear on the domain of democracy promotion."--Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace "Judith Kelley has written not only the definitive book on election monitoring for scholars and practitioners, but also an important new work on the modern practice of democracy itself. Her persuasive and carefully conducted analysis of election monitoring reveals its positive effects as well as its ambiguities and shortcomings. Election monitoring organizations should make Monitoring Democracy required reading for all their staff."--Kathryn Sikkink, University of Minnesota "In this book, Judith Kelley shows her skills as a political detective, demonstrating with impressive social science that under certain conditions--not all--election monitoring promotes democracy. If you read only one book on election monitoring, read Monitoring Democracy."--Robert O. Keohane, Princeton University "This timely book provides the first inclusive study of election monitoring as it has developed since the mid-1970s. It contains strong arguments, meticulous analysis, and a genuine understanding of the complexities of individual elections throughout the world."--Jorgen Elklit, Aarhus University "No other book compares the operations of different monitoring organizations and offers such a comprehensive overview of their effectiveness."--Amanda Sives, University of Liverpool "Monitoring Democracy answers a host of foundational questions about international election observation. What is novel about this book--and what stands as Judith Kelley's singular achievement--is her comprehensive and systematic collection of evidence. Her interpretation of this evidence is, happily, always nuanced, judicious, and just plain smart. A must-read book."--Frederic C. Schaffer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Book Authoritarianism Goes Global

Download or read book Authoritarianism Goes Global written by Larry Diamond and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With democracy in decline, authoritarian governments are staging a comeback around the world. Over the past decade, illiberal powers have become emboldened and gained influence within the global arena. Leading authoritarian countries—including China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela—have developed new tools and strategies to contain the spread of democracy and challenge the liberal international political order. Meanwhile, the advanced democracies have retreated, failing to respond to the threat posed by the authoritarians. As undemocratic regimes become more assertive, they are working together to repress civil society while tightening their grip on cyberspace and expanding their reach in international media. These political changes have fostered the emergence of new counternorms—such as the authoritarian subversion of credible election monitoring—that threaten to further erode the global standing of liberal democracy. In Authoritarianism Goes Global, a distinguished group of contributors present fresh insights on the complicated issues surrounding the authoritarian resurgence and the implications of these systemic shifts for the international order. This collection of essays is critical for advancing our understanding of the emerging challenges to democratic development. Contributors: Anne Applebaum, Anne-Marie Brady, Alexander Cooley, Javier Corrales, Ron Deibert, Larry Diamond, Patrick Merloe, Abbas Milani, Andrew Nathan, Marc F. Plattner, Peter Pomerantsev, Douglas Rutzen, Lilia Shevtsova, Alex Vatanka, Christopher Walker, and Frederic Wehrey

Book The Media for Democracy Monitor

Download or read book The Media for Democracy Monitor written by Josef Trappel and published by . This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Civil Society in the Age of Monitory Democracy

Download or read book Civil Society in the Age of Monitory Democracy written by Lars Trägårdh and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the emergence of the dissident “parallel polis” in Eastern Europe, civil society has become a “new superpower,” influencing democratic transformations, human rights, and international co-operation; co-designing economic trends, security and defense; reshaping the information society; and generating new ideas on the environment, health, and the “good life.” This volume seeks to compare and reassess the role of civil society in the rich West, the poorer South, and the quickly expanding East in the context of the twenty-first century’s challenges. It presents a novel perspective on civic movements testing John Keane’s notion of “monitory democracy”: an emerging order of public scrutiny and monitoring of power.

Book International Monitoring of Plebiscites  Referenda and National Elections

Download or read book International Monitoring of Plebiscites Referenda and National Elections written by Yves Beigbeder and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-10-18 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International monitoring of plebiscites, referenda and national elections has given a guarantee to the populations and the countries directly involved, and to the international community, that the people themselves have been able to exercise freely their right to self-determination through these processes. By focusing international attention on an internal electoral process, international monitoring may deter fraud by government, armed forces or electoral authorities. It shows international support for democracy and elections, as well as for human rights. While the international monitoring of elections does not guarantee that a dictatorship will evolve peacefully into a pluralist democracy, free and periodic elections are an essential prerequisite to the creation and maintenance of democracy, which is itself a prerequisite for the protection and promotion of human rights. The United Nations and other international organizations and groups are openly supporting the world's evolution towards democracy. This book will be of great use for those who are actively involved in international monitoring as well as for researchers in the field of democracy and human rights.

Book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Download or read book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism written by Shoshana Zuboff and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Book Measuring Democracy

Download or read book Measuring Democracy written by Gerardo L. Munck and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2009-04-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although democracy is a widely held value, concrete measurement of it is elusive. Gerardo L. Munck’s constructive assessment of the methods used to measure democracies promises to bring order to the debate in academia and in practice. Drawing on his years of academic research on democracy and measurement and his practical experience evaluating democratic practices for the United Nations and the Organization of American States, Munck's discussion bridges the theories of academia with practical applications. In proposing a more open and collaborative relationship between theory and action, he makes the case for reassessing how democracy is measured and encourages fundamental changes in methodology. Munck’s field-tested framework for quantifying and qualifying democracy is built around two instruments he developed: the UN Development Programme’s Electoral Democracy Index and a case-by-case election monitoring tool used by the OAS. Measuring Democracy offers specific, real-world lessons that scholars and practitioners can use to improve the quality and utility of data about democracy.

Book Securing American Elections

Download or read book Securing American Elections written by R. Michael Alvarez and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The integrity of democratic elections, both in the United States and abroad, is an important problem. In this Element, we present a data-driven approach that evaluates the performance of the administration of a democratic election, before, during, and after Election Day. We show that this data-driven method can help to improve confidence in the integrity of American elections.

Book The Myth of Digital Democracy

Download or read book The Myth of Digital Democracy written by Matthew Hindman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Matthew Hindman reveals here that, contrary to popular belief, the Internet has done little to broaden political discourse in the United States, but rather that it empowers a small set of elites - some new, but most familiar.

Book Watchdogs

    Book Details:
  • Author :
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1999
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 124 pages

Download or read book Watchdogs written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Watchdogs: a training manual on democracy monitoring.

Book Promoting Democracy in the Americas

Download or read book Promoting Democracy in the Americas written by Thomas F. Legler and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-09-09 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description

Book On Media Monitoring

Download or read book On Media Monitoring written by Josef Trappel and published by Mass Communication and Journalism. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction : can media monitoring support democracy? / Josef Trappel & Werner A. Meier -- Monitoring media freedom. Evaluating media freedom / Lee B. Becker & Tudor Vlad -- Monitoring and measuring press freedom on a global scale : strengths and weaknesses of the Freedom House index / Karin Deutsch-Karlekar -- Challenges of media monitoring in transition countries / Lucie Hribal -- Evaluating freedom of the media in new democracies / Kristina Weissenbach -- Monitoring media for democracy. On media monitoring : the Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) / Josef Trappel and Tanja Maniglio -- The Netherlands / Leen d'Haenens -- Germany / Frank Marcinkowski & André Donk -- Switzerland / Tanja Maniglio & Josef Trappel -- Portugal / Joaquim Fidalgo -- Lithuania / Auks Balytien and Egl Napryt -- Monitoring media organizations. Monitoring corporate governance in US and European media firms / Robert G. Picard -- Media organisations and their accountability to democracy: categories and indicators / Torbjörn von Krogh.

Book The Life and Death of Democracy

Download or read book The Life and Death of Democracy written by John Keane and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 717 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Keane's The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: can we really be sure that democracy had its origins in ancient Greece? How did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling that a bad moon is rising over all the world's democracies? Do they indeed have a future? Or is perhaps democracy fated to melt away, along with our polar ice caps? The work of one of Britain's leading political writers, this is no mere antiquarian history. Stylishly written, this superb book confronts its readers with an entirely fresh and irreverent look at the past, present and future of democracy. It unearths the beginnings of such precious institutions and ideals as government by public assembly, votes for women, the secret ballot, trial by jury and press freedom. It tracks the changing, hotly disputed meanings of democracy and describes quite a few of the extraordinary characters, many of them long forgotten, who dedicated their lives to building or defending democracy. And it explains why democracy is still potentially the best form of government on earth -- and why democracies everywhere are sleepwalking their way into deep trouble.

Book The Pseudo Democrat s Dilemma

Download or read book The Pseudo Democrat s Dilemma written by Susan D. Hyde and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-08 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did election monitoring become an international norm? Why do pseudo-democrats—undemocratic leaders who present themselves as democratic—invite international observers, even when they are likely to be caught manipulating elections? Is election observation an effective tool of democracy promotion, or is it simply a way to legitimize electoral autocracies? In The Pseudo-Democrat's Dilemma, Susan D. Hyde explains international election monitoring with a new theory of international norm formation. Hyde argues that election observation was initiated by states seeking international support. International benefits tied to democracy give some governments an incentive to signal their commitment to democratization without having to give up power. Invitations to nonpartisan foreigners to monitor elections, and avoiding their criticism, became a widely recognized and imitated signal of a government's purported commitment to democratic elections.Hyde draws on cross-national data on the global spread of election observation between 1960 and 2006, detailed descriptions of the characteristics of countries that do and do not invite observers, and evidence of three ways that election monitoring is costly to pseudo-democrats: micro-level experimental tests from elections in Armenia and Indonesia showing that observers can deter election-day fraud and otherwise improve the quality of elections; illustrative cases demonstrating that international benefits are contingent on democracy in countries like Haiti, Peru, Togo, and Zimbabwe; and qualitative evidence documenting the escalating game of strategic manipulation among pseudo-democrats, international monitors, and pro-democracy forces.