Suchergebnisse

This title brings together competing theories of civil society with critical studies of the role of civil society in diverse situations and the way in which it has been promoted as the key to democratization. The combination of contemporary theory and practical applications provides valuable reading for students of civil society and contemporary social and political change, and its policy implications for Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Despite renewed opposition from prodemocracy movements, African democracy is in a shambles. Government leaders have simply appropriated the colonial state apparatus to serve their own interests, & the people are still oppressed by the same structures they tried to overthrow in the 1960s. Although some liberalization has occurred -- eg, in Benin, Ghana, & Zambia -- government responses to public agitation have run the spectrum from cooptation to intimidation to divisionary tactics. Changes have been primarily superficial, & deeper problems remain: the repressive, undemocratic state retains its agenda; the same elite manpulates politics; the African economy is a disaster; civil society is ineffective & fragmented; primordialism has increased; elections have been emphasized at the expense of developing democratic institutions; & foreign nations continue to destabilize democracies. Still, democracy can prevail if civil society is strengthened & if prodemocracy movements & new political parties change their strategies. 4 References. E. Munson

The Republic of Korea is regarded as a shining example of democracy in East Asia. Despite this significant achievement, Korea's democracy in practice has been plagued by political gridlock, severe factional infighting, a lack of social capital and cooperation between civil society and political institutions, and leadership behavior that calls to mind its authoritarian past. Although the country is now a secure electoral democracy, its journey toward democratic consolidation is far from complete. In this volume, some of the best scholars on Korean politics explore and assess the complex interplay of the facilitating and inhibiting factors that have influenced and reshaped Korea's democratic consolidation process at all levels of state and society, as well as the prospects for consolidation in the coming years

In light of Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action (see IRPS No. 41/88c09222 & 88c09223), an analysis is offered of two opposing phenomena now occurring: fascist, despotic destruction vs radical-/eco-democratic extension of modern democracies. These phenomena, it is suggested, are both realizations of democracy's normative content; discursive solutions for social conflicts should replace the polemic of class struggle. Distinctions between formal & actual democracies are identified, & the coevolution of modern structural potentialities' variants in light of the fall of Stalinism & fascism is reviewed. Specifically modern forms of competition & the coevolution of modern structures were dysfunctional under accepted Marxist-Leninist ideologies. It is proposed that a cultural form of competition take the evolutionary lead, thus controlling the economic forms of competition through radical democratization. 32 References. J. Sadler