The Ashgate Research Companion to the Politics of Democratization in Europe: Concepts and Histories

by Palonen,Kari

• ISBN13: 9780754672500
• ISBN10: 0754672506
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

'Democratization' is a concept often used in academic book titles. Yet not many of them deal with the initial breakthrough of democratization. This research companion presents an alternative view to the widespread assumption that Western democracies should be the normative reference for the study of democratization elsewhere. Rather, it questions the universal validity of such an assumption by searching the history of European politics and by paying specific attention to the struggles of democratization accomplished outside Western Europe. This way of reading history highlights neglected dimensions of democratization such as rhetoric, conceptual change, gender and time, all of which serve as new dimensions of a topic that is seemingly well known. The authors apply a comparative approach to analyzing debates in the primary sources in a number of countries and languages, with the aim of situating the results into a broader European context.This way of reading history highlights neglected dimensions of democratization such as rhetoric, conceptual change, gender and time, all of which serve as new dimensions of a topic that is seemingly well known. The authors apply a comparative approach to analysing debates in the primary sources in a number of countries and languages, with the aim of situating the results into a broader European context.The volume consists of 25 chapters distributed among four main sections that focus on European democratization from different historical and analytical perspectives. Its objective is to discuss the politics, concepts and histories involved in democratization as a complex of changes that has altered the conditions of political action and debate in the continent for the past two centuries. The sections are structured as follows:- The seven chapters of the first section, Concepts of Democratization, focus on the historical and typological aspects of the conceptual controversies around democratization.- The six chapters of the second section, Democratization Practices, refer to the operative practices in the politics of democratization.- The six chapters in the third section, Democratizing Changes, connect democratization with more long-term historical and political changes.- The five chapters of the fourth section, Contexts of Democratization, take a definite thematic or national context as their point of departure.There exists no comprehensive volume on the democratization in Europe from the eighteenth century to the present. This volume offers scholars, students, politicians, journalists and other interested readers a picture that avoids anachronisms by reminding of the topics and problems that political agents have faced before the quasi-universal acceptance of democracy.

Table of Contents

Introduction: on the politics, concepts and histories of European democratization

Concepts: Representative democracy: Rosanvallon on the French experience

Direct democracy, ancient and modern

Neither ancient nor modern: Rousseau's theory of democracy

Representative government or republic? SieyFs on good government

Democratic politics and the dynamic of passions

Disobedient state and faithful citizen? Re-locating politics in the age of globalization

The gendered `subjects' of political representation

Practices: Political rhetoric and the role of ridicule

Political times and the rhetoric of democratization

Democratization and the instrumentalization of the past

The rhetoric of intellectual manifestos from World war I to the war against terrorism

City squats and women's struggle: feminist political action as public performance

Spectres of totality

Changes: Women's partial

citizenship: cleavages and conflicts concerning women's citizenship in theory and practice

Gendering political representation? The debate on gender parity in France

Political professionalism and representative democracy: common history, irresolvable linkage and inherent tensions

Democratization and professionalization: the disappearance of the polling officer in Germany and the introduction of computer democracy

The history of parliamentary democracy in Denmark in comparative perspective

Contexts: A long and hard process of democratization: political representation, elections and democracy in contemporary Spain

Do political parties matter? Direct democracy and electoral struggles in Switzerland in the 19th century

The breakthrough of universal suffrage in Finland, 1905-1906

Nationalism, constitutionalism and democratization: the Basque question in perspective

The Dis-/appearance of the demos

Postscript: the past, present and future of democratization

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

This research companion presents an alternative view to the widespread assumption that Western democracies should be the normative reference for the study of democratisation elsewhere. Its objective is to discuss the politics, concepts and histories involved in democratisation as a complex of changes that has altered the conditions of political action and debate in the continent for the past two centuries.