Complex Democracy: Varieties, Crises, and Transformations

✍ Scribed by Volker Schneider, Burkard Eberlein (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 287
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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 construction. The second part presents articles that investigate the response of democracies to times of crisis, with an emphasis on political economies and policy processes within the European Union. The third part offers studies on democracies that explore their adaptive potential in the context of globalization and in that of broader technical, institutional or cultural changes.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-vi
Complex Democracy: An Introduction....Pages 1-8
Front Matter....Pages 9-9
Varieties of Democracy: ‘Proporzdemokratie’, ‘Consensus Democracy’, Liberal Democracy and Direct Democracy....Pages 11-27
The Four Worlds of Democracy: Commentary on Arend Lijphart’s Revised Edition of Patterns of Democracy (2012)....Pages 29-49
‘Proporz’ or Polarization? The Religious Cleavage, the Division on the Left and the Party Systems of Southern Europe....Pages 51-68
Lehmbruch Versus Lijphart: Comparing Democratic Governments as Multidimensional Regimes....Pages 69-82
A Delicate Relationship: Austria’s Oversensitivity–Germany’s Undersensitivity?....Pages 83-92
Latent Institutional Elasticity: The Demise of Communism in the East Germany 1989/1990 and Gerhard Lehmbruch’s Concept of Administrative Interest Mediation....Pages 93-115
Can There Be a Normative Theory of Corporate Political Power?....Pages 117-131
Front Matter....Pages 133-133
No Exit from the Euro-Rescuing Trap?....Pages 135-154
Will the Present Crisis Revive the Neo-corporatist Sisyphus?....Pages 155-163
The Crisis and Germany: The Trading State Unleashed....Pages 165-183
The Public Sector in the Aftermath of the Financial and Debt Crisis: Long-Term, Neglected Consequences....Pages 185-200
When Frames Are Not Enough: Consumer Safety and National Interests in EU Financial Market Regulation....Pages 201-215
Front Matter....Pages 217-217
Transformations of Democracy in a Globalizing World....Pages 219-230
“Post-Democracy” and the Public Sphere: Informality and Transparency in Negotiated Decision-Making....Pages 231-246
The Sustainability of Democracy: The Impact of Electoral Incentives on the Input and Output Legitimacy of Democracies....Pages 247-262
Towards Post-Democracy or Complex Power Sharing? Environmental Policy Networks in Germany....Pages 263-279
Ban on Blasphemy: Protection of Religion Versus Freedom of Opinion as a Conflict of Fundamental Rights in Democracy....Pages 281-291

✦ Subjects

Comparative Politics; Political Economy; Sociology, general