Critically consider Thomas Franck's argument about an emerging right to democratic governance in international law with particular reference to the recent Palestinian elections returning a Hamas governing authority
Essay - 8 pages - Political science
“Democratic tradition involves a richly evolving collection of diverse beliefs, processes and structures that are neither easily characterized in concise terms nor summarized in a single systematic philosophy of governance” . The complexity of democratic governance could not be better...
Towards a democratisation of the Middle-East?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
The Middle East has traditionally been a region where democracy has never really managed to break through. The times of the caliphs had been replaced by a more or less violent period of colonisation. When the time for decolonisation finally came, most of the states -some more or less...
Party politics in Italy
Thesis - 3 pages - Political science
To understand the intricacies of Italian politics, one must understand the politico-ideological groupings or families that structure party-politics in the country. There are currently five political families in Italy: the “Risorgimento”, the Catholic, the Marxist, the Fascist and the...
Jihad vs. McWorld: The new world disorder
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Jihad vs. McWorld was written by Rutgers University Political Science professor Benjamin R. Barber. The author is widely regarded one of the nation's foremost scholars on democracy. He has written Strong Democracy, in which he explains that economic liberalism is the basis for and...
International political sociology
Essay - 10 pages - Political science
Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry developed by sociologists and political scientists to study the dynamic relationship between society (a complex web of social institutions and social behavior) and politics. Much of the impetus for the development of the field grew out...
Transition of Croatia
Essay - 20 pages - Political science
According to Linz and Stephan, five interacting areas need to be in place before a consolidated democracy can exist in a state. First, there must be a free and lively civil society. A civil society is the arena of the polity where self-organizing groups, movements and individuals can...
Democratic transitions in the Arab world
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
At the end of the Cold war, the political models of modernization different from democracy were totally discredited. Democracy, defined by Ghassan Salamé as an ‘arrangement institutionnnel qui permet de garantir la participation des citoyens au choix de leurs dirigeants par la...
A closer examination of the phenomenon of globalization and its affect on India
Tutorials/exercises - 117 pages - Economy general
The term "globalization" has acquired considerable emotive force. Some view it as a process that is beneficial—a key to future world economic development—and also inevitable and irreversible. Others regard it with hostility, even fear, believing that it increases inequality within and...
Globalisation and the mass media
Essay - 5 pages - Computer science
The Internet is above all, a decentralised system of interactive communication. And Internet-enthusiasts have seen it as a way to introduce more communication between different communities around the world, as well as an outstanding mean to re-invent and develop democracy. For the first...
How democratic is the British government?
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
In fact, we could set a few provisional requirements to the evaluation of a government as democratic in order to analyze the British particular case. These requirements would be of different natures, and would be related first to the institutional system, then to the society itself. Indeed, the...
Democratization versus Rule of Law
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Professor Daniel Saadoun distinguishes three features that are deemed essential in a modern democracy: universal suffrage, the inscription in the preamble of the Constitution of a set of rules that the State cannot modify or erase and the obligation for the State to look after all the...
What is the difference between "liberalization" and "democratization"?
Case study - 3 pages - Political science
In his 1997 article, The Rise of Illiberal Democracy, published in Foreign Affairs, Fareed Zakaria pointed out a phenomenon which had been growing among the newer states emerged from what Samuel Huntington named the Third Wave of Democracy (1990); newly elected powers regularly...
Is Russian political culture a serious obstacle to democratization?
Essay - 7 pages - Political science
From the end of the Cold War to nowadays, Russia has endeavored to reform itself so as to exit from a situation of crises. Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to give a new start to the economy of the Soviet Union, to reform its plethoric administration and take steps towards a more democratic,...
Globalization and the women's movement in Chile
Thesis - 9 pages - Political science
Globalization, namely the neoliberal economic policies and democratic decentralized market oriented state, is considered to be both a positive and negative development. Globalization intends to improve the conditions of developing countries so that they may experience all the benefits of...
Calhoun, Tocqueville and Lincoln's views on tyranny
Thesis - 7 pages - Political science
As the virtues and advantages of democracy were rediscovered at the end of the eighteenth century, so were its defects and drawbacks. Most authors, including Tocqueville, were faced with an empirical and theoretical vacuum in describing this new regime which began to rise in America and in...
Crime organization in Mexico and its impact on democratic institutions
Case study - 7 pages - Political science
Mexico's long road towards consolidating a democratic regime is wavering in its security due to the rampant growth and development of the organized crime in the country. As democratic institutions in Mexico have gained strength and made progress, so has the presence of organized crime in...
To what extent does the concept of civil society help in the explanation or justification of the process of democratization?
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Renewed interest in civil society emerged in the late 1980s; it coincided with the resurgence of political democracy throughout the world. Indeed, it has been increased with the growing tendency towards democratization in Eastern Europe, and several Latin American countries, where...
The Soviet and the Canadian model of political system
Thesis - 2 pages - Political science
Two of the most entrenched political systems throughout history have been socialism and democracy. One of the most notorious examples of socialism existed in the Soviet Union in the twentieth century. The Soviet model of politics did provide us an added perspective when it comes to...
Building strong civil societies in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism: Poland, Romania, and the importance of pre-existing social roots
Case study - 6 pages - International relations
Throughout Eastern Europe, embryonic civil societies have demonstrated in various ways but with the same result their crucial role in the advent of democracy in the early 1990s : within a few years, Eastern European communist governments were forced to cede power and undertake democratic...
Democratic political development
Thesis - 2 pages - Political science
The discussion of democratic political development in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Empire is interesting and it begs the question: did the Soviet model of social and political organization add anything to our understanding of democracy, and what were the advantages and costs of the...
The dictatorship of the majority vs. the dictatorship of minorities
Case study - 5 pages - Educational studies
The tyranny of the majority does not seem enviable, but it is paradoxically the own democracy, which gives full legitimacy to the number and not the optimal result / rational optimum. This expression borrowed from Tocqueville would be the product of "belief in equality." Tocqueville...
Politics is just show-business for ugly people
Essay - 5 pages - Social sciences
On October 7, 2003, the 2003 California recall resulted in Governor Gray Davis being recalled with 55.4% of the Yes vote. Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California under the second question on the ballot. On this day, a large majority of the world population discovered,...
The relationship between the different types of suffrage and the creation (or construction) of democratic institutions in France from 1789 to 1870
Thesis - 5 pages - Political science
From 1789 to 1870 in France, not less than eight constitutions and twelve regimes followed one after another. France also experienced all types of suffrages, from the most restricted one of the Ancient Regime, to the universal manhood suffrage. This period is undeniably crucial to one who aims to...
What are the challenges facing the EU in its attempts to establish democratic institutional structures ?
Thesis - 7 pages - European law
“It is time to recognise that the Union has moved from a diplomatic to a democratic process, with policies that reach deep into national societies and daily life” . This statement by the European Commission subsumes ten years of political and academic on-going debate on the...
Types of political systems
Thesis - 3 pages - Political science
There are four main types of political systems, monarchy, democracy, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism. Each one of these governments has good aspects as well as drawbacks, making some more appropriate than others depending upon the economic climate and the goals of the governing body....
The European Union's Policy in African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries: Towards an Effective Democratisation?
Essay - 7 pages - European union
“Since 1992, the European Community has included in all its agreements with third countries a clause defining respect for human rights and democracy as ‘essential elements' in the EU's relationship. This clause is unique in bilateral agreements. This approach has been further...
The third way
Essay - 9 pages - Political science
In 1999, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder issued a joint statement entitled The Third Way, Die neue Mitte. The statement committed itself to a “newly defined role for the active state” and stated that “the essential function of markets must...
Why voter turnout should matter
Case study - 3 pages - Political science
Voter turnout in the United States can be defined as the number of votes cast versus the number of registered voters. Since the 1960s, voter turnout in the United States has been steadily declining. "After rising sharply from 1948 to 1960, turnout declined in nearly every election until dropping...
The Third Way by Anthony Giddens
Book review - 7 pages - Humanities/philosophy
Anthony Giddens, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science published The Third Way in 1998. What does “Third Way” mean? For The author, the goal is a renewal of the social-democracy. Through this phrase he refers to a framework of thinking and policy-making...
Why should we care so much about how votes are translated into seats?
Thesis - 4 pages - Political science
Democracy, as we see it today across Europe, is not a given norm but an ever expanding and evolving concept with many highly debatable facets. In recent years, the make up of European democracy has changed drastically with the emergence of new democracies being born and some of the...
