Download or read book Myth and Reality of the Legitimacy Crisis written by Carolien van Ham and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theories about the decline of legitimacy or a legitimacy crisis are as old as democracy itself. Yet, representative democracy still exists, and the empirical evidence for a secular decline of political support in established democracies is limited, questionable, or absent. This lack of conclusive evidence calls into question existing explanatory theories of legitimacy decline. How valid are theories of modernization, globalization, media malaise, social capital, and party decline, if the predicted outcome (i.e. secular decline of political support) does not occur? And which (new) explanations can account for the empirical variation in political support in established democracies? This book systematically evaluates the empirical evidence for legitimacy decline in established democracies, the explanatory power of theories of legitimacy decline, and promises new routes in investigating and assessing political legitimacy. In doing so, the book provides a broad and thorough reflection on the state of the art of legitimacy research, and outlines a new research agenda on legitimacy.

Download or read book Democracy Fatigue written by Carlos García-Rivero and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the early 21st century, democracy worldwide has deteriorated significantly. At the same time, new populist forces have appeared that challenge democracies through legal reforms. The stark contrast between Eastern and Western Europe in this respect is the focus of this collection of essays. The authors consider the 2008-2012 economic crisis to be at the root of the success of the populist parties and the rise of cultural backlash against liberal values. In turn, European governments’ responses to the crisis—mainly austerity measures demanded by IMF and the EU— help explain desenchantment with the European Union. These policies made the wider public feel that they were being left out of politics, and populist parties promised to return power to them. The contributors argue that polarization of the electorate can set in motion a radicalization that strengthens authoritarians at the expense of democrats. They also demonstrate that Eastern and Western Europe differ in their attitudes to the decline in quality of democracy. The studies consider how satisfied people are with the political changes they witness, and argue that seemingly more authoritarian attitudes in the East explain why people feel more satisfied with a defective democracy that empowers the populist-authoritarian political actors that they support.

Download or read book Handbook on Political Trust written by Sonja Zmerli and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political trust – in government, parliament, or political parties – has taken centre stage in political science for more than half a century, reflecting ongoing concerns with the legitimacy and functioning of representative democracy. To provide scholars, students and policy makers with a tool to navigate through the complexity of causes and consequences of political trust, this Handbook offers an excellent overview of the conceptual, theoretical, methodological and empirical state of the art, complemented by accounts of regional particularities, and authored by international experts in this field.

Download or read book The Politics of Legitimation in the European Union written by Christopher Lord and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines and investigates the legitimacy of the European Union by acknowledging the importance of variation across actors, institutions, audiences, and context. Case studies reveal how different actors have contributed to the politics of (re)legitimating the European Union in response to multiple recent problems in European integration. The case studies look specifically at stakeholder interests, social groups, officials, judges, the media and other actors external to the Union. With this, the book develops a better understanding of how the politics of legitimating the Union are actor-dependent, context-dependent and problem-dependent. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European integration, as well as those interested in legitimacy and democracy beyond the state from a point of view of political science, political sociology and the social sciences more broadly.

Download or read book Europe s Crisis of Legitimacy written by Vivien A. Schmidt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-23 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the interrelationship between democratic legitimacy at the European level and the ongoing Eurozone crisis that began in 2010. Europe's crisis of legitimacy stems from 'governing by rules and ruling by numbers' in the sovereign debt crisis, which played havoc with the eurozone economy while fueling political discontent. Using the lens of democratic theory, the book assesses the legitimacy of EU governing activities first in terms of their procedural quality ('throughput),' by charting EU actors' different pathways to legitimacy, and then evaluates their policy effectiveness ('output') and political responsiveness ('input'). In addition to an engaging and distinctive analysis of Eurozone crisis governance and its impact on democratic legitimacy, the book offers a number of theoretical insights into the broader question of the functioning of the EU and supranational governance more generally. It concludes with proposals for how to remedy the EU's problems of legitimacy, reinvigorate its national democracies, and rethink its future.

Download or read book Political Thought and China s Transformation written by H. Li and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the late 1970s China has undergone a great transformation, during which time the country has witnessed an outpouring of competing schools of thought. This book analyzes the major schools of political thought redefining China's transformation and the role Chinese thinkers are playing in the post-Mao era.

Download or read book In Praise of Skepticism written by Pippa Norris and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A culture of trust is usually claimed to have many public benefits--by lubricating markets, managing organizations, legitimating governments, and facilitating collective action. Any signs of its decline are, and should be, a matter of serious concern. Yet, In Praise of Skepticism recognizes that trust has two faces. Confidence in anti-vax theories has weakened herd immunity. Faith in Q-Anon conspiracy theories triggered insurrection. Disasters flow from gullible beliefs in fake Covid-19 cures, Madoff pyramid schemes, Russian claims of Ukrainian Nazis, and the Big Lie denying President Biden's legitimate election. Trustworthiness involves an informal social contract by which principals authorize agents to act on their behalf in the expectation that they will fulfill their responsibilities with competency, integrity, and impartiality, despite conditions of risk and uncertainty. Skeptical judgments reflect reasonably accurate and informed predictions about agents' future actions based on their past performance and guardrails deterring dishonesty, mendacity, and corruption. We should trust but verify. Unfortunately, assessments are commonly flawed. Both cynical beliefs (underestimating performance) and credulous faith (over-estimating performance) involve erroneous judgements reflecting cultural biases, poor cognitive skills, and information echo chambers. These conclusions draw on new evidence from the European Values Survey/World Values Survey conducted among over 650,000 respondents in more than 100 societies over four decades. In Praise of Skepticism warns that an excess of credulous trust poses serious and hitherto unrecognized risks in a world full of seductive demagogues playing on our insecurities, lying swindlers exploiting our greed, and silver-tongued conspiracy theorists manipulating our darkest fears.

Download or read book A Generational Divide Age related Aspects of Political Transformation in Post crisis Southern Europe written by Emmanouil Tsatsanis and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-09-29 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the political consequences of the economic crisis in Southern Europe from the perspective of a widening intergenerational divide. It focuses on the cases of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain to fill the gap in the literature by examining various age-related rifts in post-crisis Southern Europe. Public discussion about the economic crisis of the late 2000s to mid-2010s in Southern Europe often refers to its impact on the region’s younger citizens, but not enough attention has been given to the political consequences of the crisis on the young. The comparative studies in the volume cover various thematic areas, such as electoral behaviour, political culture, democratic values, forms of political engagement and political representation. The overarching questions that the book attempts to answer are: a) to what extent and in what areas can one talk about an emergent generational divide in the region, and b) has the experience of the economic crisis been profound enough for young South Europeans to create a new ‘crisis political generation’? Many of the answers offered point to tangible effects of the crisis, but mostly in the sense of accentuating dynamics that already existed. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

Download or read book Legitimation Crisis written by Juergen Habermas and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 1975-08-25 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical Theory originated in the perception by a group of German Marxists after the First World War that the Marxist analysis of capitalism had become deficient both empirically and with regard to its consequences for emancipation, and much of their work has attempted to deepen and extend it in new circumstances. Yet much of this revision has been in the form of piecemeal modification. In his latest work, Habermas has returned to the study of capitalism, incorporating the distinctive modifications of the Frankfurt School into the foundations of the critique of capitalism. Drawing on both systems theory and phenomenological sociology as well as Marxism, the author distinguishes four levels of capitalist crisis - economic, rationality, legitimation, and motivational crises. In his analysis, all the Frankfurt focus on cultural, personality, and authority structures finds its place, but in a systematic framework. At the same time, in his sketch of communicative ethics as the highest stage in the internal logic of the evolution of ethical systems, the author hints at the source of a new political practice that incorporates the imperatives of evolutionary rationality.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Quality of Government written by Andreas Bågenholm and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 881 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent research demonstrates that the quality of public institutions are crucial for a number of important environmental, social, economic, and political outcomes, and thereby human well-being. The Quality of Government (QoG) approach directs attention to issues such as impartiality in theexercise of public power, professionalism in public service delivery, effective measures against corruption, and meritocracy instead of patronage and nepotism in the hiring of public sector employees.This handbook offer a comprehensive, state of the art overview of this rapidly expanding research field and also identifies viable avenues for future research. The initial chapters focus on theoretical approaches and debates, and the central question of how QoG can be measured. The remainingchapters examine the wealth of empirical research on how QoG relates to democratization, social cohesion, ethnic diversity, human wellbeing, democratic accountability, economic growth, political legitimacy, environmental sustainability, gender quality, and the outbreak of civil conflicts. Thesechapters bring evidence to bear to examine, for example, questions of the effect of QoG on subjective well-being (i.e. happiness), social trust and inequality. A third set of chapters turns to the perennial issue of which contextual factors and policy approaches, both national, local andinternational, have proven successful (and not so successful) for increasing QoG.The Quality of Government approach both challenges and complements important strands of inquiry in the social sciences. For research about democratization, QoG adds the importance of taking state capacity into account. For economics, the QoG approach shows that in order to produce economicprosperity, markets need to be embedded in institutions with a certain set of qualities. For development studies, QoG emphasizes that issues about corruption are integral to understanding development writ large.

Download or read book The post crisis Irish voter written by Michael Marsh and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-31 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the definitive study of the Irish general election of 2016 – the most dramatic election in a generation, which resulted in the worst electoral outcome for Ireland’s established parties, the most fractionalized party system in the history of the state, and the emergence of new parties and groups. These outcomes follow a pattern seen across a number of Western Europe’s established democracies in which the ‘deep crisis’ of the Great Recession has wreaked havoc on party systems. The objective of this book is to assess this most extraordinary of Irish elections both in its Irish and wider cross-national context. With contributions from leading scholars on Irish elections, and using a unique dataset – the Irish National Election Study 2016 – this volume explores voting patterns at Ireland’s first post crisis election and it considers the implications for the electoral landscape and politics in Ireland.

Download or read book Citizenship and Democracy in an Era of Crisis written by Thomas Poguntke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-22 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracies are transforming worldwide, but at the same time political inequality is increasing. This development threatens to leave growing portions of mass publics effectively ‘outside’ the political process. This volume brings together leading authorities in the field of democratic citizenship and participation to address pertinent questions concerning the quality of the democratic political process at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Analysing causes and consequences of recent developments in democratic governance and citizenship, it contributes new and original research to the ongoing debate on the crisis of representative democracy. The contributors deal with a broad range of issues including aspects of democratic citizenship and citizens' perceptions of system performance, political inequality and the democratic impact of participatory innovations. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in democratization studies, democratic citizenship, comparative politics, political sociology and political participation.

Download or read book Citizens and Democracy in Europe written by Sergio Martini and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an innovative and in-depth analysis of how attitudes towards democracy and political institutions differ across 31 countries in Europe, and how these attitudes have fluctuated over time. After addressing conceptual and measurement issues about the evaluative dimension of political support, the authors develop a unique framework assessing the role of the institutional format, the quality of the political process, macro-economic conditions and inequality to explain trends and differences in political satisfaction and trust. The book further explores how education, employment and electoral status create gaps in political support. Citizens and Democracy in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars in comparative politics, political sociology and public opinion.

Download or read book The Politics of Policymaking written by Arjen Boin and published by SAGE Publications Limited. This book was released on 2024-04-03 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never has good policy been so important. From unemployment and a lack of affordable housing to regulating cryptocurrencies and protecting against cybersecurity threats, the challenges we face are complex and global. The text explains how policymaking works: from the emergence of policy ideas to deciding between cutting-edge solutions, from evaluating policies to improving policymaking practices, using examples from around the world. Open up the black box of government to see where policies are made. This introductory text takes you beyond theory and into the messy world of policymaking, offering a toolkit for making better policy. Drawing from insights earned through years of interactions with policymakers and extensive teaching experience, Boin and Lodge offer a comprehensive introduction to the inner workings of government and how to produce policies that address societal problems of today and tomorrow. The Politics of Policymaking teaches you the connections between policies, their effects, and the society they impact. It explores the interplay between citizens, policymakers and politicians, and the intricate web of policy decisions. Reflective questions help to engage readers with the key themes and to reflect on the challenges of policymaking in practice. A global perspective enables you to learn from diverse viewpoints and see examples from around the world. Timely and cutting-edge, this book tackles contemporary policy issues—platform economies, climate change, and more - while delving into crucial theoretical tools like political legitimacy and reform. An assignment feature provides you with the opportunity to consolidate your learning and put it into practice. This text is an essential companion for any undergraduate or postgraduate student of Politics, International Relations, and Public Administration and for anyone aspiring to work in public policy. Arjen Boin is Professor of Public Institutions and Governance at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Martin Lodge is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at London school of Economics and Political Science.

Download or read book Good Governance in Nigeria written by Portia Roelofs and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-31 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on original fieldwork in Nigeria, Portia Roelofs reconsiders what good governance means, focusing on accountability and transparency.

Download or read book European Politics written by Paul Kubicek and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-20 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: European Politics expertly and accessibly surveys the history, institutions, and issues that are essential for understanding contemporary European politics. Exploring a central question—"what is Europe?"—this text's thematic approach helps students compare politics in individual countries and see the political big picture in the region. European Politics examines not only countries which are (or were) in the European Union but also those eligible to join, to give students the most comprehensive picture of Europe's evolution in a globalized world. Key changes for the new edition include: coverage of hot topics such as Brexit, Covid-19, rise of nationalist-populists, authoritarian developments in Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, separatism in Catalonia, refugees/migrants, environmentalism, Ukraine, Russia, US-European relations, recent elections, and security threats emanating within Europe and beyond; a consolidated presentation on the European Union; fully updated data and examples; and a new concluding chapter recapping the main ideas and suggesting scenarios for the European project moving forward. This timely, in-depth text will be essential reading for anyone interested in European politics.

Download or read book Cyberdemocracy written by Harem Karem and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-05-16 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is explicitly modernist at a time when many scholars have either forgotten the emancipatory promise of the Enlightenment or railed against it in the name of postmodernism. The book, broadly, adopts a hybrid epistemology that utilises the critical insights of Geisteswissenschaften Tradition (Weberian ‘Ideal-Type Analysis’) and the Habermas (1988) notions of the ‘public sphere’ and deliberative/dialogic democracy (‘ideal speech’) to advance a general proposition of democratic renewal by way of cyberdemocracy. Curiously, as democracy spreads across the world in the age of globalisation, it has also been accompanied by increased discontent with democratic systems. To that end, this book is not overly concerned with saving democracy beyond the liberal representative model, rather the focus is on how modern representative democracy has failed and how cyberdemocracy might function as a more effective model that truly represents the people by broadening participation and reflexive deliberation.