Post-Communist Democratization: Political Discourses Across Thirteen Countries (Theories of Institutional Design) - Softcover

Dryzek, John S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521001382 ISBN 13: 9780521001380

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Democracy is not just a matter of constitutions, parliaments, elections, parties and the rule of law. In order to see if or how democracy works, we must attend to what people make of it, and what they think they are doing as they engage with politics, or as politics engages them. This book examines the way democracy and democratization are thought about and lived by people in China, Russia and eleven other countries in the post-communist world. It shows how democratic politics (and sometimes authoritarian politics) work in these countries, and generates insights into the prospects for different kinds of political development. The authors explore the implications for what is probable and possible in terms of trajectories of political reform, and examine four roads to democratization: liberal, republican, participatory and statist. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, political theory and post-communist studies.

About this title

About the Authors

John Dryzek is Professor of Social and Political Theory in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. He has also taught at the Universities of Oregon and Melbourne. He is the author of a number of books on environmental politics and democracy, most recently Deliberative Democracy and Beyond (2000), and Democracy in Capitalist Times (1996).

Leslie Holmes is Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne. His recent books are Post-communism (1997) and The End of Communist Power (1993).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521001382
• ISBN 13: 9780521001380
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 314