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New agencies of international government are among the most innovative and experimental aspects of late 20th-century politics. This study examines the European Union, its structure, powers, operations and legitimacy, and its relationship to the United Nations and NATO.
Under the Constitution of the United States, those with political ambitions who aspire to serve in the federal government must be at least twenty-five to qualify for membership in the House of Representatives, thirty to run for the Senate, and thirty-five to become president. What is the justification for these age thresholds, and is it time to consider changing them? In this provocative and lively book, John Seery presents the case for a constitutional amendment to lower the age barrier to eighteen, the same age at which citizens become eligible to vote. He divides his argument into three sections. In a historical chapter, he traces the way in which the age qualifications became incorporated in the Constitution in the first place. In a theoretical chapter, he analyzes the normative arguments for office eligibility as a democratic right and liberty. And in a political chapter, he ruminates about the real-world consequences of passing such an amendment and the prospects for its passage. Finally, in a postscript, he argues that younger citizens in particular ought to be exposed to this fundamental issue in civics.
European politics has been reshaped in recent decades by a dual process of centralization and decentralization. At the same time that authority in many policy areas has shifted to the suprantional level of the European Union, so national governments have given subnational regions within countries more say over the lives of their citizens. At the forefront of scholars who characterize this dual process as Omulti-level governance,OLiesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks argue that its emergence in the second half of the twentieth century is a watershed in the political development of Europe. Hooghe and Marks explain why multi-level governance has taken place and how it shapes conflict in national and European political arenas. Drawing on a rich body of original research, the book is at the same time written in a clear and accessible style for undergraduates and non-experts.
This work explores the interrelationship between democracy and regional integration. Although centred in Europe, the volume shifts terms of discussion on integration and democracy by including case studies outside of Europe. It also analyzes the European Union's democratic deficit, the impact of regional integration of national democracy, and the dynamic interactions between democracy and integration elsewhere in the world.
This book analyses protests against the Great Recession in the European periphery. While social movements have long been considered as children of affluent times - or at least of times of opening opportunities - these protests defy such expectations, developing instead in moments of diminishing opportunities in both the economic and the political realms. Can social movement studies still be useful to understanding these movements of troubled times? The authors offer a positive answer to this question, although specify the need to bridge contentious politics with other fields, including political economy. They highlight differences in the social movements’ strength and breadth and attempt to understand them in terms of three sets of dimensions: a) the specific characteristics of the socio-economic crisis and its consequences in terms of mobilization potential; b) the political reactions to it, in what we can define as political opportunities and threats; and c) the social movement cultures and structures that characterize each country. The book discusses these topics through a contextualized analysis of anti-austerity protest in the European periphery.
Designed to evaluate the paradigmatic view of the Spanish transition as an ideal model for political and social change, this new and innovative volume appraises Spain's movement to democracy from a variety of important perspectives.
This book outlines what it means to study political parties as organizations by developing and applying four theoretical perspectives to the case of an unconventional Green party in Denmark called Alternativet (meaning ‘the alternative’). Drawing on an ethnographic study, the book tracks the party’s humble origins in 2013 as a social movement through its inaugural term until the 2022 national elections, spotlighting Alternativet's unprecedented organizational dynamics. By dissecting this ‘party that did not want to be a party’ through classical, configurational, comparative, and cultural lenses, the author opens a new area of enquiry to scholars in organization and management studies.
This book helps make sense of the shape of contemporary urban change and describes the way in which cities are central to the construction of place-based political identities.
This book sheds light on the role that grievances play for mobilisation dynamics in a context of material deprivation. Why do people protest? To what extent do grievances account for the varying size of protest events over time? Covering different levels of analysis, the author argues that effects of socioeconomic aspects (both objective-material deprivation and subjective-attitudinal grievances) are mediated by political attitudes, especially political dissatisfaction. He develops a framework to account for the dynamics, trajectory and timing of the cycle of contention that unfolded in Spain in the shadow of the Great Recession, contributing not only to the field of social movement studies but to our broader understanding of European politics, political sociology, political economy and economic sociology.