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The Rise of Digital Repression
Advances in artificial intelligence, mass surveillance, disinformation, facial recognition, and censorship are transforming how authoritarian leaders advance their repressive agendas. This is leading to a fundamental reshaping of the relationship between citizen and state. In The Rise of Digital Repression, Steven Feldstein presents new field research from Thailand, the Philippines, and Ethiopia to hightlight how governments pursue digital strategies of repression based on a range of factors: ongoing levels of repression, leadership, state capacity, and technological development. As many of these trends are going global, Felstein argues that this has major implications for democracies and civil society activists around the world.
The Universal Republic
Can humanity achieve collective self-government in a highly interdependent world? Catastrophic climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, war and displacement, the dangers of nuclear weapons and new technologies, and persistent poverty and inequality are among the global challenges that expose the weaknesses of existing international institutions as well as the profound disparities of power and vulnerability that exist among the world's people. The Universal Republic: A Realistic Utopia? examines whether a democratic world state is a feasible and desirable solution to the problem of establishing effective and just governance on the planet we share. While this question has haunted thinkers...
The Politics of the Pandemic in Eastern Europe and Eurasia
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the political impact of the COVID-19 emergency in central and eastern Europe and Eurasia. Offering a theoretical framework linking the authoritarian, post-Soviet institutional legacy with patterns of political behavior, support and governments’ policies, the expert contributors argue that domestic political regimes mediate and shape citizens’ perceptions of public health crises, and the very regimes’ political survival. The authors explore how the pandemic affected regime change, government stability, business groups and civil societies in more than 15 countries of the region from the discovery of the virus to the vaccination rollout. The ...
The Narrative of Africa Rising
Throughout time, African civilizations have manoeuvred and negotiated successfully to maintain their societies and ensure cultural continuity despite encountering expanding trade, foreign invasion, and imposition of colonial and neocolonial states. The Narrative of Africa Rising: Changing Perspectives evaluates the discourse on “Africa Rising” through representative case studies to create a complex and layered account of Africa’s struggles to rise above challenges and conflict in the twenty-first century. Using empirical data and field observations, editors Darlingtina K. Esiaka and Jamaine Abidogun measure Africa’s complex and uneven development over time to provide insight into how Africans across the continent utilize indigenous socio-political economic processes in the face of neocolonial “nation state” systems that routinely fail them. Africa’s twenty-first century rise is erratic as it struggles to undo the damage of colonialism and to fight neocolonial exploitation, but what stands the test of time are African civilizations’ sophisticated societal institutions that continue to vie for the wellbeing of their citizens.
Demographic Change and Intergenerational Justice
Intergenerational justice has been achieved if the opportunities of the members of the next generation to fulfill their needs are better than those of the members of the preceding generation. For this, each generation ought to leave for the next generation an amount of resources is at least equal to its own amount. The book deals with the complex relationship between intergenerational justice and demographic change and is characterized by its interdisciplinary approach. The authors come from a multitude of professional backgrounds and from several countries. This illustrates the implications of the demographic shift from many different perspectives. The book deals not only with the aspects of economic policy but also with environmental, societal and philosophical issues. The comprehensive volume is composed of five sections that pinpoint demographic trends, examine the impact of demographic changes on key indicators, investigate the relationship between key indicators and intergenerational justice, scrutinize population policies, and finally propose ways to implement long-term thinking on these issues.
Democracy in Hard Places
The last fifteen years have witnessed a "democratic recession." Democracies previously thought to be well-established--Hungary, Poland, Brazil, and even the United States--have been threatened by the rise of ultra-nationalist and populist leaders who pay lip-service to the will of the people while daily undermining the freedom and pluralism that are the foundations of democratic governance. The possibility of democratic collapse where we least expected it has added new urgency to the age-old inquiry into how democracy, once attained, can be made to last. In Democracy in Hard Places, Scott Mainwaring and Tarek Masoud bring together a distinguished cast of contributors to illustrate how democr...
Normalizing Corruption
Accountability is crucial to every successful democratic system. The failure to develop functioning mechanisms of accountability has undermined democratic consolidation worldwide. Reliable tools that hold officials accountable are essential for democratic governance; one of the key threats to accountability comes from corrupt practices, especially when they are integrated—or normalized—in the day-to-day activities of institutions. This book focuses on the experiences of contemporary Ukraine to evaluate the successes and failures of institutions, politicians, political parties, bureaucracies, and civil society. Yet, the topic is directly relevant to countries that have experienced democra...
The Interwar World
The Interwar World collects an international group of over 50 contributors to discuss, analyze, and interpret this crucial period in twentieth-century history. A comprehensive understanding of the interwar era has been limited by Euro-American approaches and strict adherence to the temporal limits of the world wars. The volume’s contributors challenge the era’s accepted temporal and geographic framings by privileging global processes and interactions. Each contribution takes a global, thematic approach, integrating world regions into a shared narrative. Three central questions frame the chapters. First, when was the interwar? Viewed globally, the years 1918 and 1939 are arbitrary limits,...
The Deep Roots of Modern Democracy
This book explores the deep roots of modern democracy, focusing on geography and long-term patterns of global diffusion. Its geographic argument centers on access to the sea, afforded by natural harbors which enhance the mobility of people, goods, capital, and ideas. The extraordinary connectivity of harbor regions thereby affected economic development, the structure of the military, statebuilding, and openness to the world – and, through these pathways, the development of representative democracy. The authors' second argument focuses on the global diffusion of representative democracy. Beginning around 1500, Europeans started to populate distant places abroad. Where Europeans were numerous they established some form of representative democracy, often with restrictions limiting suffrage to those of European heritage. Where they were in the minority, Europeans were more reticent about popular rule and often actively resisted democratization. Where Europeans were entirely absent, the concept of representative democracy was unfamiliar and its practice undeveloped.
Democracy
"Democracy is both an obvious and dubious idea. Here's why democracy is an obvious idea: For most of history, most governments divided people into the few who rule and the many who obey. The few then used the state to advance their own private interests at the expense of the many. Rulers were less like noble protectors appointed by God and more like intestinal parasites. The obvious solution is to eliminate the distinction between those who rule and those who obey. Make every citizen both a ruler and a subject of that rule. This ensures government promotes everyone's interests. Thus, democracy is the best form of government. It's too bad it took most of civilized history to realize this-and ...
