Political structure and processes Books

Book SynopsisHigh Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! North Carolina Highway 194 is a primary state highway in the state of North Carolina. Primarily in the High Country, it runs from US 19E, in Ingalls, to the Virginia state line, near Helton. Dannoe izdanie

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisMost governments in Africa, seeing the political mobilisation of ethnicity as a threat, have rejected the use of ethnic differences as an explicit basis for political representation. The one prominent exception is Ethiopia, which since 1991 has imposed a system of ethnic-based federalism that offers each ethnic group the right of ‘self-determination’. This book provides a detailed empirical study of this system at work in the complex multiethnic environment of southern Ethiopia. It finds that ethnic self-rule, in combination with the power politics of an authoritarian regime, has produced both intended and unintended outcomes. While arguably easing large-scale ethnic conflicts, it has led to ‘ethnicisation’ of local socioeconomic disputes and to sharper inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic divides, often to the disadvantage of historically marginalised groups.Table of ContentsCONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgements ...................................................... vii Abbreviations ..................................................................................... xi Selected Glossary ............................................................................... xiii List of Maps and Tables ................................................................... xv Chapter One Introduction: The Limits of Institutions in Multiethnic Societies ..................................................................... 1 Chapter Two ‘National Self-Determination’: Federalism the Ethiopian Way ............................................................................... 25 Chapter Three The Historical Trajectories of Local Ethnic Polities: The Sidama and the Wolayta ....................................... 55 Chapter Four Ethnic Politics in Play: Implementing Self-Determination in a South Ethiopian Context .................. 95 Chapter Five Crafting Ethnic Politics: The Formation of Parties in Sidama and Wolayta ................................................... 109 Chapter Six Dealing with Local Minorities: The Persistence of Discriminatory Practices under Ethnic Federalism ............ 127 Chapter Seven Identities or Resources at Stake? Controversies on National Self-Determination in Sidama and Wolayta ................................................................................... 147 Chapter Eight Conclusion: The Facets of Ethnic Federalism 179 References ........................................................................................... 195 Index ....................................................................................................203

Read more less

Book SynopsisCan ‘traditional’ leaders and institutions help to build more legitimate, accountable and effective governments in polities or ‘states’ under (re)construction? This book investigates the case of “Somaliland”, the 20-year old non-recognized state which emerged from Somalia’s conflict and state collapse. A careful analysis of Somaliland’s political history, it outlines the complex and evolving institutional and power dynamics involving clan elders, militia leaders, guerrilla movements, as well as politicians and civil servants in its emerging state structures. While showing the great potential of endogenous processes, it clearly demonstrates the complexity and the politics of those processes and the necessity to think beyond one-size-fits-all state-building formulas.Trade Review'Renders (Ghent Univ., Belgium) is as comfortable in explaining the (in) applicability of the Weberian theory of the state in this context as she is in elucidating the role of clan elders in the complex governance of the present state-like entity. She labels Somaliland a "hybrid political order (HPO)." Although densely argued, the book makes an important contribution to empirical political theory and comparative Afiican studies. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate, research, and professional collections'. H. Glickman, emeritus, Haverford College, In: Choice, August 2012 'This book is a timely contribution to the discourse on 'stateness' - the concept of becoming a state - in Somali Studies. Renders has produced an elegantly written book that adds fresh insight into statebuilding in fragile and failing states'. Mohamed Haji Ingiriis in 'Journal of the Anglo-Somali Society', Spring 2013, Issue 53, pp. 56-58Table of ContentsCONTENTS List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................... xi List of Illustrations .................................................................................................xiii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ xv A Note on Somali Orthography and Transliteration ...................................xvii Introduction: Places That Do Not Exist ............................................................... 1 A. State-Making in Somaliland......................................................................2 B. Data Collection .............................................................................................5 C. Plan of the Book .......................................................................................... 9 I Challenging Received Notions of Statehood, State Failure and State-Building ..... 13 A. Defijining a State: Somaliland’s Claim to Statehood .......................... 15 B. Failing What? .............................................................................................. 17 C. Persistent Anachronisms ......................................................................... 21 D. Anachronisms as Patches for State Failure ....................................... 22 E. Invented Traditions and the Making of African States: A Two Way-Process ... 25 F. State-Making Reconsidered: Bringing Politics Back in .................. 27 G. Concluding Remarks: Concepts, Discourse and Politics ............... 29 II The Failing State. What Has Clan Got to Do With It? ........................... 33 A. The Somaliland Protectorate and the Introduction of the Modern Nation State ........... 35 B. Colonial Administration and State Building ..................................... 42 C. Clanship Mediated Politics in Cold War Somalia ............................ 45 D. Concluding Remarks: Failed State Building? .................................... 57 III The Emergence of the Somali National Movement as a Clan-Supported Opposition Force .... 59 A. Growing Oppositions in the Northwest .............................................60 B. Becoming Isaaq ......................................................................................... 72 C. SNM Fighting in the Northwest ............................................................ 79 D. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................ 85 IV Clan Elders and the Forging of a Hybrid State ...................................... 87 A. The Role of Clan Elders in the Undoing of the SNM .................... 87 B. SNM Heartland: Clan Elders’ Negotiating Power over State Resources ....96 C. Peace, Governance and State Outside the Isaaq Heartland ......104 D. Conclusion ...............................................................................................115 V “At the Centre of Peace and War”: Pragmatic State Building Under the Egal Government, 1993–1997 .....117 A. Somaliland and UNOSOM II ...............................................................117 B. The Airport War ....................................................................................126 C. Regime Consolidation Via War … and ‘Traditional’ Peace Making ....140 D. Concluding Remarks ............................................................................150 VI Looking Like a Proper State .......................................................................153 A. The Hargeysa ‘Clan Conference’ and the End of Clan-Based Representation ......154 B. Undoing Local Governance Arrangements While Outsourcing Security and Public Order. .................159 C. Centralising Symbolic and Material Resources ............................168 D. Concluding Remarks ............................................................................174 VII Claiming the Eastern Borderlands ..........................................................177 A. The Dhulbahante and Somaliland ...................................................178 B. Competing State Claims ...................................................................... 181 C. Shifting Sands and Loose Ends ..........................................................190 D. Concluding Remarks ............................................................................194 VIII Egal’s Political and Institutional Tailpiece ............................................197 A. The Referendum on the Draft Constitution and the Introduction of the Multi-Party System ....198 B. The Opposition Sultaans....................................................................204 C. Toward the First Election ....................................................................211 D. Conclusion ..............................................................................................221 IX Somaliland as a Model for Building Proper States? ........................... 225 A. Transitioning into the Post-Egal Era ............................................... 228 B. The Elections: Clan Politics Through the Back Door .................236 C. Somaliland after the First Round of Elections under the Multi-party System ........ 255 D. Conclusion .............................................................................................263 Bibliography ...........................................................................................................267 Index......................................................................................................................... 283

Read more less

Book SynopsisThat the publics of Western democracies are becoming increasingly disenchanted with their political institutions is part of the conventional wisdom in Political Science. This trend is often equated with the expectation that all forms of political attachment and participation show similar patterns of decline. Based on empirical underpinnings derived from a range of original and sophisticated comparative analyses from Europe and beyond, this collection shows that no such universal pattern of decline exists. Nor should it be expected, given the diversity of reasons that citizens have to place or withdraw trust, and to engage in conventional political participation or in protest. Contributers are: Christoph Arndt, Wiebke Breustedt, Christina Eder, Manfred te Grotenhuis, Alexia Katsanidou, Rik Linssen, Michael P. McDonald, Ingvill C. Mochmann, Kenneth Newton, Maria Oskarson, Suzanne L. Parker, Glenn R. Parker, Markus Quandt, Peer Scheepers, Hans Schmeets, Thoralf Stark, and Terri L. Towner.Table of ContentsList of Figures and Tables Acknowledgements Note on Contributors 1. Editors’ Introduction: Political Trust and Political Disenchantment in Comparative Perspective Markus Quandt, Christina Eder, and Ingvill C. Mochmann 2. Trust and Political Disenchantment. An Overview Kenneth Newton 3. Trends in Conventional and Unconventional Political Participation in Europe 1981-2008 Rik Linssen, Hans Schmeets, Peer Scheepers, and Manfred te Grotenhuis 4. Rethinking the Meaning and Measurement of Political Trust Suzanne L. Parker, Glenn R. Parker and Terri L. Towner 5. When Citizens Lose Faith: Political Trust and Political Participation Christina Eder and Alexia Katsanidou 6. The Role of Electoral Systems for the Translation of Political Trust into Electoral Participation Christoph Arndt 7. Social risk, Political Detachment and Welfare state De-commodification Maria Oskarson 8. Contextual Income Inequality and Political Behavior Michael P. McDonald 9. Thinking Outside the Democratic Box: Political Values, Performance and Political Support in Authoritarian Regimes Wiebke Breustedt and Toralf Stark Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Dutch-German Communist Left, represented by the German KAPD-AAUD, the Dutch KAPN and the Bulgarian Communist Workers Party, separated from the Comintern (1921) on questions like electoralism, trade-unionism, united fronts, the one-party state and anti-proletarian violence. It attracted the ire of Lenin, who wrote his Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder against the Linkskommunismus, while Herman Gorter wrote a famous response in his pamphlet Reply to Lenin. The present volume provides the most substantial history to date of this tendency in the twentieth-century Communist movement. It covers how the Communist left, with the KAPD-AAU, denounced 'party communism' and 'state capitalism' in Russia; how the German left survived after 1933 in the shape of the Dutch GIK and Paul Mattick’s councils movement in the USA; and also how the Dutch Communistenbond Spartacus continued to fight after 1942 for the world power of the workers councils, as theorised by Pannekoek in his book Workers’ Councils (1946).Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ... ix Illustrations ... xi Introduction ... 1 Part 1: From Tribunism to Communism (1900–18) 1 Origins and Formation of the ‘Tribunist’ Current (1900–14) ... 11 2 Pannekoek and ‘Dutch’ Marxism in the Second International ... 82 3 The Dutch Tribunist Current and the First World-War (1914–18) ... 132 Part 2: The Dutch Communist Left and the World-Revolution (1919–27) 4 The Dutch Left in the Comintern (1919–20) ... 177 5 Gorter, the kapd and the Foundation of the Communist Workers’ International (1921–7) ... 226 Part 3: The gic from 1927 to 1940 Introduction to Part 3: The Group of International Communists: From Left-Communism to Council-Communism ... 277 6 The Birth of the gic (1927–33) ... 292 7 Towards a New Workers’ Movement? The Record of Council-Communism (1933–5) ... 327 8 Towards State-Capitalism: Fascism, Anti-Fascism, Democracy, Stalinism, Popular Fronts and the ‘Inevitable War’ (1933–9) ... 380 9 The Dutch Internationalist Communists and the Events in Spain (1936–7) ... 407 Part 4: Council-Communism during and after the War (1939–68) 10 From the ‘Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg Front’ to the Communistenbond Spartacus (1940–42) ... 431 11 The Communistenbond Spartacus and the Council-Communist Current (1942–68) ... 456 Conclusion ... 517 Works Cited ... 533 Further Reading ... 550 Addresses of Archival Centres ... 614 Acronyms ... 615 Index ... 622

Read more less

Book SynopsisOrder and Compromise questions the historicity of government practices in Turkey from the late Ottoman Empire up to the present day. It explores how institutions at work are being framed by constant interactions with non-institutional characters from various social realms. This volume thus approaches the state-society continuum as a complex and shifting system of positions. Inasmuch as they order and ordain, state authorities leave room for compromise, something which has hitherto been little studied in concrete terms. By combining in-depth case studies with an interdisciplinary conceptual framework, this collection helps apprehend the morphology and dynamics of public action and state-society relations in Turkey. Contributors are: Marc Aymes, Olivier Bouquet, Nicolas Camelio, Nathalie Clayer, Anouck Gabriela Corte-Real Pinto, Berna Ekal, Benoît Fliche, Muriel Girard, Benjamin Gourisse, Sümbül Kaya, Noémi Lévy Aksu, Élise Massicard, Jean-François Pérouse, Clémence Scalbert Yücel, Emmanuel Szurek and Claire Visier.Trade Review“This book is not only a substantial contribution to the study of the Turkish State in particular, but also a valuable volume for State studies in general.” Dilek Yankaya in ERIS Vol. 5, Issue 2/2018, 66–70 https://budrich-journals.de/index.php/eris/article/view/32807Table of ContentsList of Tables and Figures List of Abbreviations List of Contributors Introductory Note 1. Order and Compromise: The Concrete Realities of Public Action in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, Benjamin Gourisse 2. Defective Agency, Marc Aymes 3. Is it Time to Stop Speaking about Ottoman Modernisation?, Olivier Bouquet 4. The Linguist and the Politician: The Türk Dil Kurumu and the Field of Power in the 1930-40s, Emmanuel Szurek 5. An Imposed or a Negotiated Laiklik? The Administration of the Teaching of Islam in Single-Party Turkey, Nathalie Clayer 6. “The Military Seize the Law”: The Drafting of the 1961 Constitution, Nicolas Camelio 7. Institutional Cooperation and Substitution: the Ottoman Police and Justice System at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Noémi Lévy Aksu 8. The State without the Public: Some Conjectures about the Administration for Collective Housing (TOKİ), Jean-François Pérouse 9. Heritage as a Category of Public Policy in the Southeastern Anatolia Region, Muriel Girard, Clémence Scalbert Yücel 10. European Policies to Support “Civil Society”: Embodying a Form of Public Action, Claire Visier 11. The Incomplete Civil Servant? The Figure of the Neighbourhood Headman (Muhtar), Élise Massicard 12. Military Domination by Donations, Anouck Gabriela Corte-Real Pinto 13. Women’s Shelters as State Institutions, Berna Ekal 14. The Socialisation of Those Called up for “Training in the Love of the Motherland” as Part of Military Service in Turkey, Sümbül Kaya 15. Officialdom and the Woman Who Was 'Meant to Be Dead': The Ethnography of an Exfoliation, Benoît Fliche 16. Deceptive Agency, Marc Aymes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn The 1624 Tumult of Mexico in Perspective Angela Ballone offers, for the first time, a comprehensive study of an understudied period of Mexican early modern history. By looking at the mandates of three viceroys who, to varying degrees, participated in the events surrounding the Tumult, the book discusses royal authority from a transatlantic perspective that encompasses both sides of the Iberian Atlantic. Considering the similarities and tensions that coexisted in the Iberian Atlantic, Ballone offers a thorough reassessment of current historiography on the Tumult proving that, despite the conflicts and arguments underlying the disturbances, there was never any intention to do away with the king’s authority in New Spain.Trade Review"What stood at the centre of this processes, indeed what made it possible for local power struggles to be resolved, was a shared understanding of the principles of law, power, and authority which bound the early modern Spanish world together and which, as Ballone demonstrates, were fundamentally the same on both sides of the Atlantic." - Francisco A. Eissa-Barroso, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK, in: The International Journal of Maritime History 31(2) (June 2019) [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ijh] “Superando la narrativa de las historias nacionales, Ballone apuesta por un enfoque “atlántico” para estudiar el tumulto de 1624. Así, la autora concibe este conflicto no como algo restringido a la política interna del virreinato de la Nueva España, sino como un fenómeno cuyas causas y repercusiones deben ser ubicadas en ambos lados del Océano Atlántico, un espacio que es entendido más en términos de continuidad que de ruptura o separación.” - Francisco Quijano, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – UNAM (Mexico), in: Los Reinos de las Indias en el Nuevo Mundo (blog), 22 January 2019 [https://losreinosdelasindias.hypotheses.org/] “La autora sugiere de un modo convincente que la solución del conflicto, - y los radicales cambios de postura de la corona - se explican tanto por la evolución de las relaciones de poder en Madrid, y por los imperativos de la política extranjera de España, como por el análisis que ella hace de la situación local. (...) Reexaminando la crisis mexicana de 1624, Ballone logra innovar. Poniendo a debate la noción de autoridad monárquica mediante el análisis de su ejercicio concreto, apropiándose de los objetos y de las herramientas de la historia de las redes y de los de la historia atlántica, la autora logra abrir nuevas perspectivas.” - Pierre Ragon, Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre (France), in: Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos (blog), 17 December 2018 [https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/74030]. "In the finest tradition of Atlantic history, Angela Ballone’s monograph about the 1624 tumult of Mexico City brings us a broader understanding of how royal authority was made in New Spain and Spanish America". Gibran Bautista y Lugo, in Fifteenth–Seventeenth Centuries.Table of ContentsGeneral Editor’s Foreword Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Abbreviations Transcription System The Tumult in Brief Introduction  The Scale of the Mexican Disturbances  Royal Authority as a Tool of Integration in the Iberian Atlantic  Historiographical Approaches to the Tumult of 1624 Rethinking the Tumult in Perspective 1 Theatre of the Disturbances  Windows onto the Iberian Atlantic World  Metropolis of the New World  The Composite Nature of Mexican Urban Population  The Broad Urban Scenario  Royal Authority in Flesh and Blood 2 Pre-Dating the Tumult  The Mexican Audiencia at the Time of Guadalcazar  Guadalcazar: el Buen Rey or a Despotic Viceroy?  Historiography on Guadalcazar’s Mandates  From Mexico to Lima  The Logistics of Communication in the Iberian Atlantic 3 A Viceroy in an Age of Decline  Royal Appointment by Philip III  Gelves’s First Entry in Mexico City  First Impressions in the New World  Positive Feedback to the Council  Reforming Local Custom and Patronising Municipal Institutions  Supervising the Administration of Justice  The First Arrest of Oidor Vergara Gaviria  Old World Casuistry and New Instructions from Spain 4 The Two Heads of the Viceroyalty  The Administration of the Faith: A Sensitive Topic  Idyll between Archbishop and Viceroy  Deterioration of the Varaez Case  Two Majesties in Conflict  Juntas in Spanish America  Authority from Theory to Practice  The Cathedral of Mexico and the Scale of Conflicts  New Year and the Eve of the Tumult  The Beginning of the End  Reactions to the Exile 5 Storming the Viceregal Palace  Royal Authority Performed in the Mexican Zócalo  The King Arrested and the Pope Exiled  Sacred Objects in the Battlefield  A Heretic Viceroy in Mexico City?  ‘Long Live to the King and Death to Heretics!’  The Insurgents’ Requests  From Fire to Firearms  The Regency  The Viceroy is Missing  The Tumult is Over  Who were These Insurgents Anyway? Illustrations The Long Road to Resolution 6 The Day After  Comuneros of New Spain?  The Pillage of the Palace  ‘No God, nor King, nor Judges!’  The Mexican Delegation  The Viceroy Besieged  Justice and Power Performed by the Audiencia  Sparkling the Transatlantic Debate  A New Viceroy in an Age of Crisis  Restoration of Viceregal Authority  Two Viceroys, Two Schools of Politics  The Archbishop of Mexico in Europe 7 Tools of Control from the Metropolitan Court  Preparations for the General Inspection  The Beginning of the Inspection  Gelves’s Judicial Examination  Viceroys’ Authority above Everything Else  The Second Arrest of Oidor Vergara Gaviria  Mexico City under Pressure Again  The End of Gelves’s Juicio de Residencia (in Mexico)  Unsettling Metropolitan Considerations about the Inspection 8 From the Inspection to the General Pardon  Another Extraordinary Junta at the Court of Philip IV  The Mexican Pardon in Perspective  The New Archbishop of Mexico  Restoration of Religious Authority  The Edict of the Pardon  The New Inspection  Different Interpretations of the Pardon  More Tensions in Mexico City  The Resilience of the Gelvista Party 9 Metropolitan Déjà Vu  Two Heads in Opposition, Again  ‘There is Only One Viceroy in New Spain!’  Assessing the Junta del Tumulto de México  The Members of the Junta  The Hidden ‘Life’ of the Junta del Tumulto  An Ongoing Discussion outside the Junta  Rethinking Metropolitan Perceptions of Mexican Politics  The Viceroys’ Sentences Conclusions Appendix: A Fructibus Eorum Cognoscentis Eos (México, 1629) Glossary Select Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book examines the Brazilian political process in the period of 2003-2020: the governments led by the Workers’ Party and their reformist policies, the deep political crisis that led to the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the rise of Bolsonaro neofascism. The author maintains that the Party and ideological conflicts present in the Brazilian politics are linked to the class distributive conflicts present in the Brazilian society. Defeated for the fourth consecutive time in the presidential election, the political parties representing the international capital and segments of the bourgeoisie and of the middle class, abandoned the rules of the democratic game to end the Workers' Party government cycle. They paved the way for the rise of neofascism.Table of ContentsPreface to the English Edition List of Tables and Charts part 1 Reform and Social Classes in the pt Governments 1 State, Bourgeoisie, and Neoliberalism in the Lula Government  1 The Bloc in Power in the Neoliberal Period  2 The Political Ascension of the Industrial Bourgeoisie and Agribusiness under the Lula Government  3 Political Rise, but No Hegemony Established  4 The Political Regime and the Hegemony of Financial Capital  5 Final Considerations 2 The Lula Governments The New “National Bourgeoisie” in Power  1 fhc, Lula, and Disputes within the Bourgeoisie  2 The Political Relations of the Big Internal Bourgeoisie with the Lula Government  3 Contradictions within the Internal Bourgeoisie and the Neodevelopmentalist Front 3 The Political Bases of Neodevelopmentalism  1 The Neodevelopmentalist Political Front  2 The Neodevelopmentalist Program  3 The Classes and Class Fractions Integrating the Neodevelopmentalist Front  4 The Contradictions in the Core of the Front 4 Lulism, Populism, and Bonapartism  1 The Concepts  2 Varguism and Lulism  3 Bonapartism and Lulism 5 Neodevelopmentalism, Social Classes, and Foreign Policy in the pt Governments  1 The Bloc in Power and the Neodevelopmentalist Political Front  2 Foreign Policy and the Neodevelopmentalist Front  3 Conclusion 6 Neodevelopmentalism and the Recovery of the Brazilian Union Movement  1 Neodevelopmentalism and the Union Movement  2 The Union Movement’s Political Moderation  3 The Growth of the Strike Struggle  4 Final Considerations part 2 The Nature and Dynamics of the Crisis that Led to the Impeachment 7 The Political Crisis of Neodevelopmentalism and the Instability of Democracy  1 The Political Crisis  2 The Neoliberal Bourgeois Offensive  3 The Participation of the Upper Middle Class  4 The Presence of the Working Classes  5 The Instability of Democracy  6 The Government’s Reaction and the Popular Movement 8 State, State Institutions, and Political Power in Brazil  1 The Bloc in Power and Class Alliances  2 The Political Regime and the Contradictions within the State Bureaucracy  3 bndes, Petrobras, and the Big Internal Bourgeoisie  4 Judicial Institutions, the Associated Bourgeoisie, and the Upper Middle Class  5 Final Considerations 9 Operation Car Wash, the Middle Class, and State Bureaucracy  1 The State’s Social Function, Social Classes, and Bureaucracy  2 Operation Car Wash and the Middle Class  3 The Middle Class and Corruption 10 The Crisis of Neodevelopmentalism and the Dilma Rousseff Government  1 A Couple of Things to Learn from the Crisis  2 The Bloc in Power and Class Alliances  3 The Political Crisis 11 Why was the Resistance to the 2016 Coup D’état so Weak?  1 The Internal Bourgeoisie was Divided in the Face of the Coup  2 The Marginal Mass of Workers Remained Passive  3 The Unionized Workers were Neutralized  4 After the Coup   Afterword Bolsonaro and the Rise of Neofascism  1 When Can We Speak of Fascism?  2 Bolsonarism is One of the Species of the Fascism Genre  3 The Bolsonaro Government and the Originating Political Crisis  4 Fascism and Bourgeoisie: Unity, Conflicts, and Conciliation  5 Final Considerations Bibliography Index 220

Read more less

Book SynopsisPost-Communist Democratisation in Lithuania: Elites, Parties, and Youth Political Organisations. 1988 – 2001 explains post-communist changes in Lithuania. The transformation of political party system, political elites and youth political organisations in Lithuania are examined in light of democratisation in other post-communist countries. By linking theories of democratisation and elites to actual events, the book provides an analytical framework for interpreting political regime change and development in Lithuania. The book is based on five assumptions: (1) democratisation in Lithuania belongs to a ‘Western type’ of democratic development; (2) elites and nationalism were the major forces in modernisation; (3) Lithuanian elites have used the favourable conditions of perestroika and were the major actors in regime transformation; (4) the crop of political elites in Lithuania undergoes a generational change, and youth political organisations are very important in this process as they serve as schools for future politicians; and (5) class theory is less useful than elite theory when analysing the process of democratisation in Lithuania.Table of ContentsList of Tables List of Figures Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction Theorising the Post-Communist Democratisation: The Role of Political Elites A Few Remarks on Theories of Democratisation Theories of Elites and the Analysis of Post-Communist Democratisation The Role of Political Parties The New Political Scene in Lithuania The Development of the Political Party System Regime Legitimacy The Transformation of Political Elites Rising New Elites: A Case of Youth Political Organisations The Methodology of the Research The Origin of Youth Political Organisations The Relationship with “The Mother Parties” Goals and Functions of Youth Political Organisations The Procedure of Joining the Organisations Reasons for Joining the Organisations Some Structural Features of Youth Political Organisations Opinions on Internal Functioning of Youth Political Organisations Opinions of Selected Political Matters Some Concluding Remarks: Differences and Similarities Conclusions Notes References Appendix 1. The Content of the Questionnaires Appendix 2. Description of the Respondents Appendix 3. Summarised Data from a Survey of the Members of Youth Political Organisations Appendix 4. Summarised Data of a Survey of Members of the Lithuanian Parliament in 1996-2000 About the Author

Read more less