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South Africa's hard-won democracy was the main victim of the chaos in parliament during President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address. In Recovering Democracy in South Africa, Raymond Suttner brings together the best of his recent thinking; he offers a fresh look at the wide range of contentious issues that currently preoccupy South Africans, from the threat to constitutionalism to problems with leadership and questions of ethics. The book is as much an in-depth engagement with our difficult present as it is a damning account of the politics of the Zuma era

"This book examines democracy in recent Chinese-language philosophical work. It focuses on Confucian-inspired political thought in the Chinese intellectual world from after the communist revolution in China until today. The volume analyzes six significant contemporary Confucian philosophers in China and Taiwan, describing their political thought and how they connect their thought to Confucian tradition, and critiques their political proposals and views. It illustrates how Confucianism has transformed in modern times, the divergent understandings of Confucianism today, and how contemporary Chinese philosophers understand democracy, as well as their criticisms of Western political thought. "--

What should we do about foreigners? Should we try to make them more like us or keep them at bay to protect our democracy, our culture, our well-being? This dilemma underlies age-old debates about immigration, citizenship, and national identity that are strikingly relevant today. In Democracy and the Foreigner, Bonnie Honig reverses the question: What problems might foreigners solve for us? Hers is not a conventional approach. Instead of lauding the achievements of individual foreigners, she probes a much larger issue--the symbolic politics of foreignness. In doing so she shows not on

It is surprising how resistant some parts of the world remain to democratic tendencies, taking into account the remarkable progress of democracy in other regions. This paper reveals that the process of democratisation need not progress at the same pace or follow a precisely laid out pattern in different countries, regions or cultures. Globalisation had and continues to have a positive effect on the democratisation of the world in general. Yet the most successful project so far appears to be the European integration. What lessons or processes are applicable in the hostile environments where democracy seems not to thrive?

Cover -- Title -- Dedication -- Copyright -- Table of Contents -- List of Tables -- List of Figures -- Preface -- Chapter 1: Background to Democracy-Bureaucracy Relations -- Chapter 2: Realities of Making Bureaucracy Representative -- Chapter 3: Policymaking and Political Control of Bureaucracy -- Chapter 4: Democratization, Bureaucracy, and Development -- Chapter 5: Democracy and Bureaucracy in a Global Economy -- Chapter 6: Policymaking and the Geopolitics of Bureaucracy -- Chapter 7: Outlook for Democracy-Bureaucracy Relations -- Bibliography -- Index.

Abstract
Despite a sizeable theoretical and empirical literature, no firm conclusions have been drawn regarding the democracy–economy-nexus. This paper aims to assess the twosided relationship between democracy and economic development based on the current state of research. Literature will be used to examine whether and how democracy affects economic development, as well as the reverse question. Does economic development influence the form of government of a society, i.e. can it promote or hinder a transition from autocracy to democracy? In addition to approaches that postulate a positive relationship, we will also present perspectives that either negatively interpret a correlation between the two variables or completely negate it.

There must be as many different kinds of democracy in this country as there are of Baptists, or even more.... Press-agencies must keep half a hundred assorted encomiums on democracy in standing type, like Western Union's canned messages for Mother's Day.... Every time one of our first-string publicists opens his mouth, a "democracy" falls out; and every time he shuts it, he bites one in two that was trying to get out.1

It is not unlikely that within the next two years nearly every country in Latin America will be governed by an elected civilian regime. This might surprise most Americans, accustomed as we are to thinking about the region in terms of coup-prone military governments and repressive oligarchies. We are surprised too at the recent embrace of democracy in Latin America by the Reagan administration. Some of its leading representatives went about touting the virtues of authoritarian government; but the administration has found that it is good politics to promote democracy and free elections in Central America and the Caribbean— and politically impossible to resume aid to regimes with bad human rights records. In fact, "Project Democracy" is the latest buzzword of Reagan's Latin American policy.

A review and application of Degenerations of Democracy, by Craig Calhoun, Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, and Charles Taylor (hereafter, CGT); Liberalism and Its Discontents, by Francis Fukuyama; and How Democracies Live, by Stein Ringen. A strengthened liberal democratic culture is essential for the health and vitality of democracy. This culture is made up of three components: a cluster of liberal values (rule of law, freedom, equality, and reason), a democratic governing system grounded in popular sovereignty, and a collective experience of shared respect for liberal values and democratic institutions. Has this culture lost its strength? Is the collective experience and belief in democratic legitimacy disappearing? Are liberal values increasingly contested? All of the theorists under review address these questions. And for all, the answer is "yes, but…." They make strikingly similar arguments about the sources of this culture's strength, the causes of its current weakness, and how it can be strengthened. The general thrust of these books is this: a strong liberal democracy rests on three cultural foundations: the strength of social bonds, the level of deliberative civil discourse, and the level of economic equality. The main challenge to this threefold foundation's strength is neoliberalism, which all authors agree has led to liberal democracy's decline. I draw on this argument as a guide to assess the strength of liberal democracy in a small population living in rural Alpine County, California. I find that although it is relatively small and isolated, the drivers of democratic decline have found their way into this tiny community. Some aspects of liberal democratic culture have remained strong (voter turnout and volunteerism are high, and many citizens serve in elected office and on government committees); others, however, have weak roots that were never cultivated and continue to weaken further (equality, inclusion, open debate). Finally, I suggest that to strengthen liberal democracy, citizens must participate in it and leaders must work for the good of the entire community, not just the few.

Justice (al-'adl) is one of the principal values of the Islamic faith. In Islam, Justice, and Democracy, Sabri Ciftci explores the historical, philosophical, and empirical foundations of justice to examine how religious values relate to Muslim political preferences and behavior. He focuses on Muslim agency and democracy to explain how ordinary Muslims use the conceptions of divine justice—either servitude to God or exercising free will against oppressors—to make sense of real-world problems.
Using ethnographic research, interviews, and public opinion surveys as well as the works of Islamist ideologues, archives of Islamist journals, and other sources, Ciftci shows that building contemporary incarnations of Islamist justice is, in essence, a highly practical political project that has formative effects on Muslim political attitudes. Islam, Justice, and Democracy compares the recent Arab Spring protests to the constitutionalist movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Middle East to demonstrate the continuities and rifts a century apart.
By putting justice at the center of democratic thinking in the Muslim world, Ciftci reconsiders Islam's potential in engendering both democratic ideals and authoritarian preferences.

Justice (al-'adl) is one of the principal values of the Islamic faith. In Islam, Justice, and Democracy, Sabri Ciftci explores the historical, philosophical, and empirical foundations of justice to examine how religious values relate to Muslim political preferences and behavior. He focuses on Muslim agency and democracy to explain how ordinary Muslims use the conceptions of divine justice—either servitude to God or exercising free will against oppressors—to make sense of real-world problems. Using ethnographic research, interviews, and public opinion surveys as well as the works of Islamist ideologues, archives of Islamist journals, and other sources, Ciftci shows that building contemporary incarnations of Islamist justice is, in essence, a highly practical political project that has formative effects on Muslim political attitudes. Islam, Justice, and Democracy compares the recent Arab Spring protests to the constitutionalist movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Middle East to demonstrate the continuities and rifts a century apart. By putting justice at the center of democratic thinking in the Muslim world, Ciftci reconsiders Islam's potential in engendering both democratic ideals and authoritarian preferences.

The vote in the House of Commons, on February 1st, 2017, about whether the United Kingdom should leave the European Union raises a host of important theoretical questions in normative political theory. One of them is this: Main Question: In a representative democracy, can a member of a legislature legitimately flip-flop and vote in accordance with the majority view on Issue when she, prior to getting knowledge, through a referendum result, of what the majority view is on Issue, has defended, and recommended to voters, a view that is logically inconsistent with the majority view? This paper defends an affirmative answer to the Main Question. This conclusion is not trivial given that there are many ways in which a member of a legislature can engage in an act of illegitimate flip-flopping. The last section of the paper moves beyond the Main Question and the related issue of how a legislator can legitimately flip-flop. This section raises the question of whether the trustee view of what obligations a legislator has in a representative democracy towards her constituents is mistaken. An alternative to the trustee view is presented and discussed, and it is concluded that this alternative view is implausible.