Political Participation in a Changing World

Political Participation in a Changing World

Author: Yannis Theocharis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 115

ISBN-13: 1351394606

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In the last decades, political participation expanded continuously. This expansion includes activities as diverse as voting, tweeting, signing petitions, changing your social media profile, demonstrating, boycotting products, joining flash mobs, attending meetings, throwing seedbombs, and donating money. But if political participation is so diverse, how do we recognize participation when we see it? Despite the growing interest in new forms of citizen engagement in politics, there is virtually no systematic research investigating what these new and emerging forms of engagement look like, how prevalent they are in various societies, and how they fit within the broader structure of well-known participatory acts conceptually and empirically. The rapid spread of internet-based activities especially underlines the urgency to deal with such challenges. In this book, Yannis Theocharis and Jan W. van Deth put forward a systematic and unified approach to explore political participation and offer new conceptual and empirical tools with which to study it. Political Participation in a Changing World will assist both scholars and students of political behaviour to systematically study new forms of political participation without losing track of more conventional political activities.


Measuring Democracy

Measuring Democracy

Author: Gerardo L. Munck

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2009-04-15

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0801896509

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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.


Autocratization in post-Cold War Political Regimes

Autocratization in post-Cold War Political Regimes

Author: Andrea Cassani

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-12-14

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 303003125X

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This book deals with post-Cold War processes of autocratization, that is, regime change towards autocracy. While these processes are growing in number and frequency, autocratization remains a relatively understudied phenomenon, especially its most recent manifestations. In this volume, the authors offer one of the first cross-regional comparative analyses of the recent processes of regime change towards autocracy. Building on an original conceptual framework, the two authors engage in the empirical investigation of the spreading of this political syndrome, of the main forms that it takes, and of the modes through which it unfolds in countries ruled by different political regimes, with different histories and belonging to different regional contexts. The research is conducted through a mix of research techniques that include descriptive statistical analysis, Qualitative Comparative Analysis and case study. This book will be of interest to a heterogeneous readership that encompasses the broader community of scholars, analysts, observers, journalists, and practitioners interested in political development and regime change in different geographical areas.


Post-communist Regime Change

Post-communist Regime Change

Author: Jørgen Møller

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-06-02

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1134014880

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This book seeks to explain the advent of this post-communist tripartition and elucidate and explain the political pathways of 24 post-communist countries in the period 1990-2005.