Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The Cultural Dynamics of Democratization in Spain
Since the death of Franco in 1975, Spain has made a successful transition to democracy. This book looks at what that transition has meant for the Spanish people. Drawing on national surveys taken in 1978, 1980, 1984, and 1990, the authors explore three questions: What is the basis of the new regime's political legitimacy? How did Spanish democracy move from the conservative center-right coalition that engineered the transition to the socialist government that consolidated it? And why is political participation so low among Spaniards? The answers to the first two questions highlight the ambiguity built into the political contrast with the Franco regime and a certain appreciation of the materi...
Symbol and Ritual in the New Spain
This is a book about the role of culture in social change and the Spanish transition to democracy after Franco. Laura Desfor Edles takes a distinctively culturalist approach to the 'strategy of consensus' deployed by the Spanish elite and uses systematic textual interpretation (with a particular focus on Spanish newspapers) to show how a new symbolic framework emerged in post-Franco Spain which enabled the resolution of specific events critical to the success of the transition. In addition to uncovering underlying processes of symbolization, she shows that politico-historical transitions can themselves be understood as ritual processes, involving as they do phases and symbols of separation, liminality and re-aggregation.
Japan's Foreign Policy Maturation
The sudden end of the Cold War took the Japanese foreign policy community by surprise. The Yoshida Doctrine which served Japanese foreign policy so well during the Cold War is no longer a viable foreign policy option. This dissertation examines the restructuring of Japanese foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Through a series of 56 interviews with Japanese foregin policy elites, the changes in Japanese foreign policy are put into the context of the foreign policy literature.
Polarized Politics in South Korea
South Korea is one of the most successful cases of democratization and economic growth in the world. It shares one troubling problem with many other countries in recent years: the visible increase of extreme polarization in the language and emotions of political topics. However, Korea has experienced this problem much earlier. The history created weak parties that use deeply effective but harmful stories. This combination creates a downwards spiral where the performance of moral superiority becomes the sharpest weapon. The author points out that we need a standard for viewing this growing problem and argues that the traits of polarization in language are not well understood. Using partisan newspaper text data from 1990 to 2014 and quantitative text analysis, this book collects the most typical emotions and topics used by parties and partisans, analyzing why they exist. In the age of digital data and possibly restricted mobility, this book is a proposal for what the author calls “Computational Area Studies” and “Distant Fieldwork.”
Chinese Political Culture
Until this book, there has been no comprehensive, methodologically aware study of all aspects of Chinese political culture. The book is organized into three major areas: Chinese identities and popular culture (regional identities, anti-politics attitudes, Hong Kong identity); public opinion surveys (the Beijing area, Chinese workers, the Shanghai area); and ideological debates (the "new" Confucianism, masculinity and Confucianism, why authoritarianism is popular in China, the decline of Chinese official ideology). Here is the first work that reveals just how much, how rapidly, and how dramatically China is changing and why our perceptions of China must keep pace.
Development on the Periphery
"In Development on the Periphery, noted textbook author Howard J. Wiarda tackles the important question of development in Southern and Eastern Europe. Comparing the two regions gives us insight into the similarities and differences that have united and separated them for thousands of years."--Jacket.
The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe
What has become of the Communist parties that once held monopoly power in the east bloc? A decade ago, it was assumed that they would dissolve, but many of them have enjoyed electoral success. This book systematically examines how they have evolved. In the opening section, Herbert Kitschet and Ivan Szelenyi respectively consider post-communist party strategies and social democratic prospects in the transitional societies. Part II presents nine case studies of the major communist and communist successor parties of the region, and Part III is devoted to seven comparative studies. Appendices provide comparable electoral and party membership data.
Working-Class Organization and the Return to Democracy in Spain
Following the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, the long repressed Spanish labor movement faced two challenges: to contribute to the transformation of the national political system, and to use newly achieved freedoms to build its own organizational presence. Focusing on areas of potential conflict between these two broad objectives, Robert Fishman here traces the development of the complex political role and organizational development of the Spanish workers' movement in the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Drawing on rich empirical data including interviews with 324 plant-level labor leaders, Fishman examines the interplay between various unions' efforts to organize labor and to d...
