Search results for ""Author Richard Gunther""
Johns Hopkins University Press Political Parties and Democracy
Political parties are one of the core institutions of democracy. But in democracies around the world-rich and poor, Western and non-Western-there is growing evidence of low or declining public confidence in parties. In membership, organization, and popular involvement and commitment, political parties are not what they used to be. But are they in decline, or are they simply changing their forms and functions? In contrast to authors of most previous works on political parties, which tend to focus exclusively on long-established Western democracies, the contributors to this volume cover many regions of the world. Theoretically, they consider the essential functions that political parties perform in democracy and the different types of parties. Historically, they trace the emergence of parties in Western democracies and the transformation of party cleavage in recent decades. Empirically, they analyze the changing character of parties and party systems in postcommunist Europe, Latin America, and five individual countries that have witnessed significant change: Italy, Japan, Taiwan, India, and Turkey. As the authors show, political parties are now only one of many vehicles for the representation of interests, but they remain essential for recruiting leaders, structuring electoral choice, and organizing government. To the extent that parties are weak and discredited, the health of democracy will be seriously impaired. Contributors: Larry Diamond and Richard Gunther * Hans Daalder * Philippe Schmitter * Seymour Martin Lipset * Giovanni Sartori * Bradley Richardson * Herbert Kitschelt * Michael Coppedge * Ergun Ozbudun * Yun-han Chu * Leonardo Morlino * Ashutosh Varshney and E. Sridharan * Stefano Bartolini and Peter Mair.
£25.50
Johns Hopkins University Press Parties, Politics, and Democracy in the New Southern Europe
In the acclaimed Politics of Democratic Consolidation, Nikiforos Diamandouros, Richard Gunther, and their co-authors showed how democratization unfolded in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, culminating in consolidated democratic regimes. This volume continues that analysis, posing the basic question: What kind of democratic politics emerged in those countries? It presents systematic analyses of the basic institutions of government and of the dynamics of electoral competition in the four countries (set in comparative context alongside several other democracies), as well as detailed studies of the evolution of the major parties, their electorates, their ideologies, and their performances in government over the past twenty years. The authors reach two major conclusions. First, the new democracies' salient features are moderation, centripetalism, and the democratization of erstwhile antisystem parties on the Right and Left. Second, no single "Southern European model" has emerged; the systems differ from one another about as much as do the other established democracies of Europe. Contributors: P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, University of Athens * Richard Gunther, Ohio State University * Thomas C. Bruneau, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey * Arend Lijphart, University of California at San Diego * Leonardo Morlino, University of Florence * Risa A. Brooks, Stanford University * Jose R. Montero, Autonomous University of Madrid * Giacomo Sani, University of Pavia * Paolo Segatti, University of Trieste * Gianfranco Pasquino, University of Bologna * Takis S. Pappas, College Year, Athens * Hans-Jrgen Puhle, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main * Anna Bosco, University of Trieste
£30.00
Johns Hopkins University Press The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective
In The Politics of Democratic Consolidation, a distinguished group of internationally recognized scholars focus on four nations of Southern Europe-Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece-which have successfully consolidated their democratic regimes. Contributors are P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, Richard Gunther, Hans-Jurgen Puhle, Edward Malefakis, Juan J. Linz, Alfred Stepan, Felipe Aguero, Geoffrey Pridham, Sidney Tarrow, Leonardo Morlino, Jose R. Montero, Gianfranco Pasquino, and Philippe C. Schmitter.
£30.00