Search results for ""Author Dirk Jan Wolffram""
Stanford University Press Political Democracy and Ethnic Diversity in Modern European History
This volume brings together scholars from the United States and Europe to examine the history of one of the great challenges to European politics today—the relationship between political democracy and ethnic diversity. The major questions posed by the authors are: is ethnic homogeneity a condition of democracy, or is it a historical coincidence that modern democracies seem to prosper in ethnically homogeneous societies? How relevant is ethnic diversity or homogeneity in explaining the success or failure of democracy in Europe? And how did democracies cope with ethnic diversity, in comparison with other political systems—empires and modern dictatorships in particular? The answers may be unsettling: homogeneity and diversity have both proven to be destructive forces in history. Whereas Western European democracies incorporated these ethnic differences into their political system, the introduction of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe was seriously hampered, both by ethnic conflicts and by efforts to homogenize the region ethnically. This is the first book in which the fate of democracy is directly related to ethnic diversity.
£89.10
Stanford University Press Political Democracy and Ethnic Diversity in Modern European History
This volume brings together scholars from the United States and Europe to examine the history of one of the great challenges to European politics today—the relationship between political democracy and ethnic diversity. The major questions posed by the authors are: is ethnic homogeneity a condition of democracy, or is it a historical coincidence that modern democracies seem to prosper in ethnically homogeneous societies? How relevant is ethnic diversity or homogeneity in explaining the success or failure of democracy in Europe? And how did democracies cope with ethnic diversity, in comparison with other political systems—empires and modern dictatorships in particular? The answers may be unsettling: homogeneity and diversity have both proven to be destructive forces in history. Whereas Western European democracies incorporated these ethnic differences into their political system, the introduction of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe was seriously hampered, both by ethnic conflicts and by efforts to homogenize the region ethnically. This is the first book in which the fate of democracy is directly related to ethnic diversity.
£23.99
Peeters Publishers In Control of the City: Local Elites and the Dynamics of Urban Politics, 1800-1960
The central topic in this volume is change in the nature and composition of local elites, in roughly the period from the first half of the nineteenth century until the second half of the twentieth century. This volume contains contributions which focus on developments in the Western world, with an emphasis on cases in Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United States. These cases reveal how simultaneously emerging and diminishing local elites were exposed to a fundamentally changing balance in local political, social and cultural arrangements during the era of industrialization and urbanization. The political role of local elites in a dynamic urban environment is at the heart of analysis in the volume. Formal (local government, bureaucracy) and informal (cultures and styles, networks, social groups and movements) local politics are studied. Central questions which are addressed in the contributions include: what did local elites want, what were their aims, what was their purpose and what did they intend to achieve by holding or obtaining political power on a local level? This volume offers both a new theoretical framework in time and space for the study of local government and local elites, and a wide range of empirical studies which are original both in topic and approach. Contributions range from local kinship networks in Southern Germany to the professionalization of local bureaucracy in the Netherlands and Great Britain, and comprise aspects like the impact of architecture on Belgian local government, reform literature in the USA and the Netherlands, the changing roles of mayors, and the emergence and education of new elites.
£65.85
