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""Populism and Civil Society: The Challenge to Constitutional Democracy" is a theoretical work, that draws on extensive secondary literature as well comparative analysis of cases. The aim is to assess the significance of what is now a global phenomenon--the populist challenge to constitutional democracy. After defining populism using the methods of immanent criticism and ideal typic construction, it proceeds to examine the challenge in terms of its four main organizational forms: movement mobilization, political party, government and regime. It considers the important questions "why populism" and "why now". Without presupposing the authoritarian logic of the phenomenon in the definition, the book seeks to demonstrate it through the reconstruction of the main elements used by advocates to identify populism. It shows that the authoritarian logic is not realized in every empirical form of populism, and considers why this is so for many movement and party forms, and even populists "in" government vs. populism as 'the" government. The historical examples of the latter we identify as "hybrid" regimes blending authoritarian elements and residual democratic forms. The book then proceeds to consider the uneasy relationship of populism to constitutionalism. It presents populism as a form of abusive or instrumental "constitutionalism" often relying on the alleged permanence of the quasi-revolutionary constituent power. It concludes by outlining a non- and anti-populist project of democratization and social justice, distinguishing between the "popular" and the "populist" and outlining a program based on the plurality of democracies and the rescue of some of left populism's "host ideologies""--

Global civil society and the society of democratic states are the two most inclusive and powerful global practices of our time. In this book, Frost claims that, without an understanding of the role that individual human rights play in these practices, no adequate understanding of any major feature of contemporary world politics from 'globalisation' to 'new wars' is possible. Constituting Human Rights, therefore argues that a concern with human rights is essential to the study of International Relations.

This thesis examines the role of civil society in addressing human security in the Indian state of Meghalaya. Civil society has been revived over the last two decades and is now one of the key concepts in the study of politics. Yet there are few detailed empirical studies of civil society at a local level examining the constraints on participation and the ways this affects what is contested. Human security has also gained prominence in the past decade as both a challenge to state-centric conceptions of security and as an alternative approach to development by focussing on the security and insecurity of groups and individuals. In order for those experiencing insecurity to identify and contest the causes of insecurity, participation in civil society is necessary. Yet there is very limited analysis on the ability of civil society actors to contest the causes of insecurity in particular local contexts. Meghalaya is part of the region know as Northeast India, one of the least researched regions in South Asia. Identity politics dominate civil society in Meghalaya, empowering particular actors and particular causes of insecurity and marginalising others. Furthermore the construction of Meghalaya in the Indian national context leaves it isolated from civil society actors in other parts of India, intensifying the impact of local circumstances. This thesis examines the responses of civil society actors to environmental insecurity and gender-based insecurity in Meghalaya and finds that participation is constrained by the dominance of identity politics, the power differentials between civil society actors, and existing inequalities within the local context. This thesis reaches three conclusions. First, civil society is constrained by both the state and the power of particular actors and ideas in civil society itself. Secondly, the relationship between civil society and human security is constitutive. Constraints on civil society affect which insecurities can be contested and the prevalence of particular forms of insecurity, ...