Download or read book Policy Driven Democratization written by Peride K. Blind and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-07 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policy-Driven Democratization offers a comprehensive conceptual analysis of each one of these fuzzy terms separately to then sew them together in one complete and coherent package of democratization.
Download or read book Public Policy for Democracy written by Helen Ingram and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fundamental rethinking is under way about the roles of government, citizens, and community organizations in public policy. Can government be reconstructed to make public policies more responsive to citizens and thus more effective? This challenge is apparent in the activist policy agenda of the Clinton administration, which supports national service programs, government-voluntary collaborations, and community-based development projects. Public Policy for Democracy is an important and timely contribution to the current discussion of how to get people more involved in their own governance. In this book, contributors urge policymakers and policy analysts to promote a more vigorous and inclusive democracy by incorporating concerns about citizenship in their craft, rather than strictly emphasizing efficiency and effectiveness. The authors provide insight into how the social construction of politics affects the recipients of the policies and the public in general. They call attention to how policies reinforce negative stereotypes of some groups, such as welfare recipients, and often lead to political alienation and withdrawal. In addition, they discuss how polices using "clinical reason"—a term borrowed from medicine and used as a way to classify people—are increasingly applied to nonmedical situations, such as domestic violence, to restrict individual power and legitimacy. The authors argue that much needs to be done by the government itself to improve policy design and empower all citizens to participate in the democratic process. They identify concrete strategies for policymakers to enhance the role of citizens without sacrificing program effectiveness.
Download or read book US Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion written by Michael Cox and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The promotion of democracy by the United States became highly controversial during the presidency of George W. Bush. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were widely perceived as failed attempts at enforced democratization, sufficient that Barack Obama has felt compelled to downplay the rhetoric of democracy and freedom in his foreign-policy. This collection seeks to establish whether a democracy promotion tradition exists, or ever existed, in US foreign policy, and how far Obama and his predecessors conformed to or repudiated it. For more than a century at least, American presidents have been driven by deep historical and ideological forces to conceive US foreign policy in part through the lens of democracy promotion. Debating how far democratic aspirations have been realized in actual foreign policies, this book draws together concise studies from many of the leading academic experts in the field to evaluate whether or not these efforts were successful in promoting democratization abroad. They clash over whether democracy promotion is an appropriate goal of US foreign policy and whether America has gained anything from it. Offering an important contribution to the field, this work is essential reading for all students and scholars of US foreign policy, American politics and international relations.
Download or read book Democracy and American Foreign Policy written by Robert Strausz-Hupe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-18 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since World War I, the United States has pursued the defense of Western civilization as a critical element of its own national interest. In his provocative reconsideration of that goal, Robert Strausz-Hupe asks whether the American people can still agree upon and adopt foreign policies consistently devoted to that end. He specifically examines popular and paradoxical attitudes that often undermine Washington's ability to defend American and Western interests, attitudes towards society and the state, politics and government, instruments of foreign policy and the people who wield them. As the backdrop for his analysis, Strausz-Hupe employs the wisdom of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, reiterating Tocqueville's finding that the driving force of American life is its passion for equality and democracy. To this insight, Strausz-Hupe adds another: When one realizes that domestic politics is the driving force behind foreign policy, one understands why "the foreign policy of the United States cannot be other than the defense of democracy everywhere." Unlike some analysts, however, Strausz-Hupe believes that this proposition states only the problem for American statesmen not the answer. The answer, Strausz-Hupe concludes, lies in a universal federation of democratic states. In an appreciative foreword that examines the evolution of Strausz-Hupe thought, Walter A. McDougall demonstrates that this idealistic vision of a democratic world-state has been the unifying thread in Strausz-Hupe's intellectual career, not the calculating Realpolitik so often attributed to him. Democracy and American Foreign Policy will be of central importance to international relations specialists, policymakers, political scientists, and students of political philosophy. Its chapters include "Tocqueville and Nationalism"; "Tocqueville and Marx"; "The Hypocrisies of Egalitarianism"; "Foreign Policy and Interest Groups"; and "Isolationism and the New World Order."
Download or read book The Comparative International Politics of Democracy Promotion written by Jonas Wolff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though scholarly attention to democracy promotion is increasing, there is still little comparative and theoretically-based work on the protagonists of democracy promotion. This book investigates the motives that drive democracy promotion in a comparative and theoretically oriented manner, exploring how democracy promoters deal with conflicting objectives and the factors that shape their behaviour. It also addresses the more policy-oriented debate on the contemporary challenges to democracy promotion, focusing on US and German policies towards three kinds of challenges: the emergence of ‘radical’ leftist governments in Bolivia and Ecuador, the political rise of Islamist movements in Turkey and Pakistan, and the consolidation of (semi-)authoritarian rule in Belarus and Russia. In each case, North-Western democracy promoters have been confronted with serious conflicts of objectives between security, economic interests and democracy promotion. The analysis and comparison of such situations in which democracy promoters have to deal with competing objectives and make tough decisions provides powerful evidence as to the factors that shape democracy promotion. The Comparative International Politics of Democracy Promotion will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, comparative politics, democratization studies and foreign policy.
Download or read book Discursive Democracy written by John S. Dryzek and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discursive Democracy examines how the political process can be made more vital and meaningful.
Download or read book Evidence of Democracy The Relationship Between Evidence Based Policy and Democratic Government written by Shaun Young and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The preceding decade has witnessed the production of a substantial volume of scholarship dedicated to exploring the concept of evidence-based policy - the idea that 'at the heart' of properly developed public policy is 'the best available evidence'. Concomitantly, 'evidence' has secured an unparalleled pride of place (at least, rhetorically) among policy-makers, who will often refer to the conclusions of 'the best available evidence' when seeking to justify particular decisions. However, a number of additional considerations have been identified as desirably or otherwise influencing policy-makers' decisions, including fiscal and time constraints, personal experience, societal values, and short-term/long-term political strategy, to name a few. Indeed, arguably, policy-makers in contemporary democratic polities have no choice but to incorporate such considerations into their decision-making if they genuinely wish to produce a policy proposal that is both politically and publicly viable. Does such a situation problematically impede the meaningful realization of evidence-based policy? This essay offers some preliminary observations concerning certain tensions between the idea of evidence-based policy and the practice of democracy and briefly considers the degree to which those tensions might and should be resolved.
Download or read book Organizing Democratic Choice written by Ian Budge and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-28 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bold venture into democratic theory offers a new and reinvigorating thesis for how democracy delivers on its promise of public control over public policy. In theory, popular control could be achieved through a process entirely driven by supply-side politics, with omniscient and strategic political parties converging on the median voter's policy preference at every turn. However, this would imply that there would be no distinguishable political parties (or even any reason for parties to exist) and no choice for a public to make. The more realistic view taken here portrays democracy as an ongoing series of give and take between political parties' policy supply and a mass public's policy demand. Political parties organize democratic choices as divergent policy alternatives, none of which is likely to satisfy the public's policy preferences at any one turn. While the one-off, short-run consequence of a single election often results in differences between the policies that parliaments and governments pursue and the preferences their publics hold, the authors construct theoretical arguments, employ computer simulations, and follow up with empirical analysis to show how, why, and under what conditions democratic representation reveals itself over time. Democracy, viewed as a process rather than a single electoral event, can and usually does forge strong and congruent linkages between a public and its government. This original thesis offers a challenge to democratic pessimists who would have everyone believe that neither political parties nor mass publics are up to the tasks that democracy assigns them. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.
Download or read book Democratization by Institutions written by Leslie E. Anderson and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The case of Argentina demonstrates that formal government institutions can facilitate democratization
Download or read book New Democracy and Autocratization in Asia written by Kuyoun Chung and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-08-19 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the quality of democracies in Asia and determines why current democracies—especially during the so-called “new normal” era following the 2008 financial crisis—have become less stable and less resilient to increasing authoritarianism. Based on the assumption that the concept of democracy consists of three elements—procedure (participation, competition, and distribution of power); effectiveness (representation, accountability, and responsiveness); and performance (social welfare, inequality, and trust)—the contributors to this book determine which elements are responsible for diverging trajectories within the Asian democratic recession. Examining South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Myanmar, and China, the authors employ different research methods—quantitative, comparative, or individual case studies—to explore the conditions under which democratic rules and norms erode over time, and which type of governance is preferred by citizens in this region as an ideal type. The book puts forward the argument that a procedure-oriented concept of democracy is not sufficient for understanding the source of democratic recession and develops a new concept of “new democracy” based on procedure, effectiveness, and performance. It also demonstrates to what extent the experience changes and how the countries respond to these changes. A novel contribution on the state of democracy in Asia written by experts from the region, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of political science, especially comparative politics and international relations, regional study of East and Southeast Asia, sociology, public policy, economics, and social science methods. Also, this book will appeal to think tanks and policy-oriented researchers.
Download or read book The Effect of Democratization on Election oriented Economic Policy written by Jin Seok Bae and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of electoral politics on macroeconomic and distributive policy in East Asian “developmental states” using empirical evidence from South Korea. Based on existing theories of political budget cycles (PBCs) and distributive politics, this study examines how democratization affects the pattern and degree of political budget cycles and targeted spending. Contrary to the bureaucracy dominance thesis in developmental state theory, I argue that authoritarian leaders in Korea had incentives to manipulate macroeconomic conditions before elections to increase the ruling party’s urban representation. The incentives for PBCs and targeted spending under authoritarian rule were, of course, smaller than that under democracy, but the constraints on PBCs and targeted spending were also smaller under authoritarian rule. I find that PBCs occurred in Korea before and after democratization and that democratization did not affect the degree of PBCs in statistical terms. Based on these findings, I conclude that the increased constraints (checks and balances) offset the increased incentives (electoral competition) after democratization. This study also pays attention to the institutional variables that shape incumbent’s preference regarding tactical allocation: the N=2 Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) system under authoritarian rule adopted to increase ruling party’s urban representation; the five-year single term presidency under democracy that led the president’s goal to focus on preempting early lame-duck status and obtaining a graceful retirement. Based on the analysis of the institutional effect on identifying target group, I demonstrate that the main target for the incumbents during the authoritarian period was swing voters in urban areas, while the main targets for the incumbents during the democratic period were both the incumbent’s core support group and opposition backers.
Download or read book Freedom in the World 2018 written by Freedom House and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 1265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.
Download or read book Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy written by Michael Albertus and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that - in terms of institutional design, the allocation of power and privilege, and the lived experiences of citizens - democracy often does not restart the political game after displacing authoritarianism. Democratic institutions are frequently designed by the outgoing authoritarian regime to shield incumbent elites from the rule of law and give them an unfair advantage over politics and the economy after democratization. Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy systematically documents and analyzes the constitutional tools that outgoing authoritarian elites use to accomplish these ends, such as electoral system design, legislative appointments, federalism, legal immunities, constitutional tribunal design, and supermajority thresholds for change. The study provides wide-ranging evidence for these claims using data that spans the globe and dates from 1800 to the present. Albertus and Menaldo also conduct detailed case studies of Chile and Sweden. In doing so, they explain why some democracies successfully overhaul their elite-biased constitutions for more egalitarian social contracts.
Download or read book e Democracy written by David Rios Insua and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-09-02 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Internet is starting to permeate politics much as it has previously revolutionised education, business or the arts. Thus, there is a growing interest in areas of e-government and, more recently, e-democracy. However, most attempts in this field have just envisioned standard political approaches facilitated by technology, like e-voting or e-debating. Alternatively, we could devise a more transforming strategy based on deploying web based group decision support tools and promote their use for public policy decision making. This book delineates how this approach could be implemented. It addresses foundations, basic methodologies, potential implementation and applications, together with a thorough discussion of the many challenging issues. This innovative text will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners in the fields of e-government, e-democracy and e-participation and research in decision analysis, negotiation analysis and group decision support.
Download or read book Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance written by Stephen Elstub and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-27 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic innovations are proliferating in politics, governance, policy, and public administration. These new processes of public participation are reimagining the relationship between citizens and institutions. This Handbook advances understanding of democratic innovations, in theory and practice, by critically reviewing their importance throughout the world. The overarching themes are a focus on citizens and their relationship to these innovations, and the resulting effects on political equality. The Handbook therefore offers a definitive overview of existing research on democratic innovations, while also setting the agenda for future research and practice.
Download or read book Democratization in the Middle East written by Amin Saikal and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part I. Democratic peace, conflict prevention, and the United Nations. Part II. Secularization and democracy. Part III. National and regional experiences.
Download or read book Mobilizing for Democracy written by Vera Schatten Coelho and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
