Download or read book The Third Wave written by Samuel P. Huntington and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-09-06 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1974 and 1990 more than thirty countries in southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. This global democratic revolution is probably the most important political trend in the late twentieth century. In The Third Wave, Samuel P. Huntington analyzes the causes and nature of these democratic transitions, evaluates the prospects for stability of the new democracies, and explores the possibility of more countries becoming democratic. The recent transitions, he argues, are the third major wave of democratization in the modem world. Each of the two previous waves was followed by a reverse wave in which some countries shifted back to authoritarian government. Using concrete examples, empirical evidence, and insightful analysis, Huntington provides neither a theory nor a history of the third wave, but an explanation of why and how it occurred. Factors responsible for the democratic trend include the legitimacy dilemmas of authoritarian regimes; economic and social development; the changed role of the Catholic Church; the impact of the United States, the European Community, and the Soviet Union; and the "snowballing" phenomenon: change in one country stimulating change in others. Five key elite groups within and outside the nondemocratic regime played roles in shaping the various ways democratization occurred. Compromise was key to all democratizations, and elections and nonviolent tactics also were central. New democracies must deal with the "torturer problem" and the "praetorian problem" and attempt to develop democratic values and processes. Disillusionment with democracy, Huntington argues, is necessary to consolidating democracy. He concludes the book with an analysis of the political, economic, and cultural factors that will decide whether or not the third wave continues. Several "Guidelines for Democratizers" offer specific, practical suggestions for initiating and carrying out reform. Huntington's emphasis on practical application makes this book a valuable tool for anyone engaged in the democratization process. At this volatile time in history, Huntington's assessment of the processes of democratization is indispensable to understanding the future of democracy in the world.
Download or read book International Economic Law in the 21st Century written by Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The state-centred 'Westphalian model' of international law has failed to protect human rights and other international public goods effectively. Most international trade, financial and environmental agreements do not even refer to human rights, consumer welfare, democratic citizen participation and transnational rule of law for the benefit of citizens. This book argues that these 'multilevel governance failures' are largely due to inadequate regulation of the 'collective action problems' in the supply of international public goods, such as inadequate legal, judicial and democratic accountability of governments vis-a-vis citizens. Rather than treating citizens as mere objects of intergovernmental economic and environmental regulation and leaving multilevel governance of international public goods to discretionary 'foreign policy', human rights and constitutional democracy call for 'civilizing' and 'constitutionalizing' international economic and environmental cooperation by stronger legal and judicial protection of citizens and their constitutional rights in international economic law. Moreover intergovernmental regulation of transnational cooperation among citizens must be justified by 'principles of justice' and 'multilevel constitutional restraints' protecting rights of citizens and their 'public reason'. The reality of 'constitutional pluralism' requires respecting legitimately diverse conceptions of human rights and democratic constitutionalism. The obvious failures in the governance of interrelated trading, financial and environmental systems must be restrained by cosmopolitan, constitutional conceptions of international law protecting the transnational rule of law and participatory democracy for the benefit of citizens.
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 Democracy and Development written by Adrian Leftwich and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1996-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is democracy a necessary condition for economic development or is it an outcome of it? This central question is addressed in chapters specially commissioned for this book.
Download or read book Democracy in the Third World written by Robert Pinkney and published by Lynne Rienner Pub. This book was released on 2003 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an in-depth analysis of the factors contributing to and those hindering the establishment of democracy in Third World countries. Beginning by looking at the concept of democracy in its various forms and the literature thereof, the text then looks at the Third World specifically, examining the impact of colonial rule and the eclipse of democracy in the years after independance. After considering the exceptional countries in which democracy survived intact, the book goes on to look at the various attempts at transition from authoritarianism to democracy, and at the prospects for democracy in the years ahead. This updated edition incorporates explorations ofthe influences of external forces, the roles of the state and civil society, and the varying trajectories of democratic consolidation (and decay).
Download or read book Decomposing Social Indicators Using Distributional Data written by Martin Ravallion and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1999 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: July 1995 Cross-country comparisons suggest that poor people tend to be in worse health than others, and that their health responds more to differences in public health spending. Are the poor less healthy? Does public health spending matter more to them? Bidani and Ravallion decompose aggregate health indicators using a random coefficients model in which the aggregates are regressed on the population distribution by subgroups, taking account of the statistical properties of the error term and allowing for other determinants of health status, including public health spending. This also allows them to test possible determinants of the variation in the underlying subgroup indicators. They implement the approach with data on health outcomes and poverty measures for 35 developing countries. Bidani and Ravallion find that poor people have appreciably worse health status on average than others--and that differences in public health spending tend to matter more to the poor. This is probably because the nonpoor are in a better position to buy private health care. This paper--a product of the Poverty and Human Resources Division, Policy Research Department--is part of a larger effort in the department to understand the interlinkage between poverty and human development.
Download or read book Determinants of Democratization written by Jan Teorell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-28 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the determinants of democratization? Do the factors that move countries toward democracy also help them refrain from backsliding toward autocracy? This book attempts to answer these questions through a combination of a statistical analysis of social, economic, and international determinants of regime change in 165 countries around the world in 1972–2006, and case study work on nine episodes of democratization occurring in Argentina, Bolivia, Hungary, Nepal, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, and Uruguay. The findings suggest that democracy is promoted by long-term structural forces such as economic prosperity, but also by peaceful popular uprisings and the institutional setup of authoritarian regimes. In the short-run, however, elite actors may play a key role, particularly through the importance of intra-regime splits. Jan Teorell argues that these results have important repercussions both for current theories of democratization and for the international community's effort in developing policies for democracy promotion.
Download or read book An Agenda for Democratization written by Boutros Boutros-Ghali and published by UN. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report will help to deepen understanding of the United Nations efforts in favour of democratization & to intensify the debate on future international action in this area for many years to come.
Download or read book Making Waves written by Kurt Weyland and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-07 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study investigates the three main waves of political regime contention in Europe and Latin America. Surprisingly, protest against authoritarian rule spread across countries more quickly in the nineteenth century, yet achieved greater success in bringing democracy in the twentieth. To explain these divergent trends, the book draws on cognitive-psychological insights about the inferential heuristics that people commonly apply; these shortcuts shape learning from foreign precedents such as an autocrat's overthrow elsewhere. But these shortcuts had different force, depending on the political-organizational context. In the inchoate societies of the nineteenth century, common people were easily swayed by these heuristics: jumping to the conclusion that they could replicate such a foreign precedent in their own countries, they precipitously challenged powerful rulers, yet often at inopportune moments - and with low success. By the twentieth century, however, political organizations had formed. As organizational ties loosened the bounds of rationality, contentious waves came to spread less rapidly, but with greater success.
Download or read book World on Fire written by Amy Chua and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2004-01-06 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The reigning consensus holds that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated with underdevelopment. In this revelatory investigation of the true impact of globalization, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnic violence after adopting free market democracy. Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority. These “market-dominant minorities” – Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews in post-communist Russia – become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidal revenge. She also argues that the United States has become the world’s most visible market-dominant minority, a fact that helps explain the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. Chua is a friend of globalization, but she urges us to find ways to spread its benefits and curb its most destructive aspects.
Download or read book Politics and the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid written by Peter Boone and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critics of foreign aid programs have long argued that poverty reflects government failure. In this paper I analyze the effectiveness of foreign aid programs to gain insights into political regimes in aid recipient countries. My analytical framework shows how three stylized political/economic regimes labeled egalitarian, elitist and laissez-faire would use foreign aid. I then test reduced form equations using data on nonmilitary aid flows to 96 countries. I find that models of elitist political regimes best predict the impact of foreign aid. Aid does not significantly increase investment and growth, nor benefit the poor as measured by improvements in human development indicators, but it does increase the size of government. I also find that the impact of aid does not vary according to whether recipient governments are liberal democratic or highly repressive. But liberal political regimes and democracies, ceteris paribus, have on average 30% lower infant mortality than the least free regimes. This may be due to greater empowerment of the poor under liberal regimes even though the political elite continues to receive the benefits of aid programs. An implication is that short term aid targeted to support new liberal regimes may be a more successful means of reducing poverty than current programs.
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.
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 Democratization in Africa written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-02-01 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global movement toward democracy, spurred in part by the ending of the cold war, has created opportunities for democratization not only in Europe and the former Soviet Union, but also in Africa. This book is based on workshops held in Benin, Ethiopia, and Namibia to better understand the dynamics of contemporary democratic movements in Africa. Key issues in the democratization process range from its institutional and political requirements to specific problems such as ethnic conflict, corruption, and role of donors in promoting democracy. By focusing on the opinion and views of African intellectuals, academics, writers, and political activists and observers, the book provides a unique perspective regarding the dynamics and problems of democratization in Africa.
Download or read book The Globalization of Human Rights written by Jean-Marc Coicaud and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International efforts to construct a set of standardised human rights guidelines are based upon the identification of agreed key values regarding the relationships between individuals and the institutions governing them, which are viewed as critical to the well-being of humanity and the character of being human. This publication considers these issues of justice at the national, regional, and international levels by analysing civil, political, economic and social rights aspects.
Download or read book Democratization Through the Looking glass written by Peter J. Burnell and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that our perspectives on democratization reflect the intellectual origins of the inquiry. A range of disciplines from anthropology to economics, sociology and legal scholarship, as well as different area studies, offer a rich combination of analytical frameworks, distinctive insights and leading points of concern.
