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This book presents a state-of-the art collection of original contributions on democracy, addressing three related themes: the complexity of modern democracies and their structural diversity; coping strategies of democracies in times of crises; and current and potential trajectories and transformations of democracy. The first part of the book maps the democratic landscape by revealing the diversity of democratic political systems, through either comparative analysis or case studies on the specific nature of political and administrative systems in interest intermediation and identity constructi

Private Organisation in Global Politics is a groundbreaking study which brings together a broad range of case-studies to examine the role and character of private organisations in the process of political globalization. Focusing on areas such as human rights organisations, the international women's movement and the combating of disease, the panel of expert contributors investigate the function of these in relation to governance in the globalizing world.

Information exchange in policy networks is usually attributed to preference similarity, influence reputation, social trust, and institutional actor roles. We suggest that political opportunity structures and transaction costs play another crucial role and estimate a rich statistical network model on tie formation in the German toxic chemicals policy domain. The results indicate that the effect of preference similarity is absorbed by institutional, relational, and social opportunity structures. Political actors choose contacts who minimize transaction costs while maximizing outreach and information. We also find that different types of information exchange operate in complementary, but not necessarily congruent, ways.

Information exchange in policy networks is usually attributed to preference similarity, influence reputation, social trust and institutional actor roles. We suggest that political opportunity structures and transaction costs play another crucial role and estimate a rich statistical network model on tie formation in the German toxic chemicals policy domain. The results indicate that the effect of preference similarity is absorbed by other determinants while opportunity structures indeed have to be taken into account. We also find that different types of information exchange operate in complementary, but not necessarily congruent, ways.

This paper assesses the impact of large events such as the financial crisis in 2008 and the Copenhagen meeting in 2009 on the public attention attributed to the climate change issue and to the related policy discourse in the German press. Based on a quantitative content analysis of the two largest German national quality newspapers, a quasi-experimental approach will be adopted, testing the propositions of "punctuated equilibrium theory" (Baumgartner & Jones 1993) in policy analysis. The paper will also use concepts and approaches in the area of discourse analysis – from qualitative methods to more formal quantitative approaches to the analysis of discourse structures and network relations (Janning et al 2009). Large scale and focusing events such as the economic crisis or the Copenhagen meeting can trigger shifts and changes in the discourse on climate change. Preliminary analysis has shown that the economic crisis produced a kink in the issue-attention cycle, triggering a substantial decrease in public attention as public attention to the economic crisis soared. Moreover, the results indicate that actors have changed their discursive behavior in the light of the economic crisis, entailing changes in the actors' standing and the frames applied by them to the issue of climate change (Vogt 2009). As natural experiments run short of quantifying causal links between variables, the observed changes in public attention and discursive behavior can at least be explained by qualitative explanatory sketches in which the changes and shifts are traced and interrelated by visual descriptions at various levels.