Democratic Transformations in Europe: Challenges and Opportunities

✍ Scribed by Yvette Peters, Michaël Tatham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 362
• Series: Routledge Advances in European Politics
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Democracies evolve. Their evolution is not only key to their survival; it is also a reflection of the changing environment in which they operate. This book contributes to the analysis and understanding of how democratic states have transformed over time by examining a number of challenges and opportunities that they face.

With a focus on ‘Europe 31’, understood as the EU28 plus Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland, the book brings together separate strands of literature which often remain disconnected in political science narratives. Looking at citizen–state relations, the restructuring of politics and institutions of the state, and developments which reach 'beyond and below' the state, it interrogates a variety of issues ranging from the decline of parties or the re-emergence of nationalism as a political force, to liberal challenges to social democracy, terrorist threats, and climate change. The book combines these different dimensions into a comprehensive overview of the state of contemporary democracy, its challenges and opportunities, and its dynamic capacity to adapt. In other words, it deals with the perpetual threats to and transformations of democracy, and the state’s ability to protect and strengthen its democratic attributes.

This text will be of key interest to scholars of European Politics, Comparative Politics, and Democracy Studies.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Dedication......Page 8
CONTENTS......Page 10
List of figures and tables......Page 13
Foreword......Page 16
Contributors......Page 17
1 The transformation of democracy......Page 22
PART 1 Citizen–state relations......Page 32
2 A re-emergence of nationalism as a political force in Europe?......Page 34
3 What kind of challenge? Right-wing populism in contemporary Western Europe......Page 54
4 Party decline?......Page 72
5 Democratic discontent in times of crisis?......Page 93
PART 2 Restructuring the politics and institutions of the state......Page 118
6 The struggle between liberalism and social democracy......Page 120
7 The sustainability of European welfare states: the significance of changing labour markets......Page 141
8 Intra-EU migration and the moral sustainability of the welfare state......Page 164
9 Displacing politics: the state of democracy in an age of diffused responsibility......Page 184
PART 3 Governing beyond and below the state......Page 208
10 Terrorism, counterterrorism, and democracy......Page 210
11 Climate change mitigation......Page 230
12 Minority rights under majority rule: LGB rights in Europe......Page 252
13 Is the European public sphere good for democracy?......Page 273
14 Multi-jurisdictional politics: state adaptation and mixed visions of democracy......Page 290
PART 4 Conclusions......Page 316
15 The contemporary state of democracy in a transformed Europe......Page 318
Index......Page 348