You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The authors assess not only the benefits, but also the costs of attempts to assert a European identity. Referring to debates about the respective merits of deepening and widening, they address the equally important associated tradeoffs between exclusion and dilution: they point to the risks on the one hand of a Europe that excludes foreign goods, immigrants and entire countries, and on the other of an unfocused definition of Europe that may dilute the very values that a "European identity" is intended to protect.
Direct Democratic Choice sets out to understand how the citizens actually decide in direct-democratic votes. Author Hanspeter Kriesi has analyzed nearly twenty years of post-election surveys in Switzerland (1981-1999), which he has contextualized according to the various political issues and the relevant arguments provided by the political elites. This book's core argument is that the citizens who participate in direct-democratic votes make competent choices. Kriesi provides strong support for an optimistic view of direct-democratic decision-making but also indicates that this process, wherever it occurs, can be improved by proper institutional design and by appropriate strategies enacted by the political elite.
In the first study of comparative direct-democracy, Laurent Bernhard explores the nature of direct-democratic campaigning in Switzerland. The author examines four policy areas: immigration, healthcare, welfare and economic liberalism focussing on interviews with campaign managers to provide a comprehensive analysis of direct-democratic campaigning.
First Published in 1990. John Maynard Keynes once made the bold prediction that the three- hour work day would prevail for his grandchildren's generation. Seventy years later, the question of working time is as pertinent as it was at the inception of the 40-hour week. Not until now, however, has there been a global comparative analysis of working time laws, policies and actual working hours. Despite a century-long optimism about reduced working hours and some progress in legal measures limiting working hours, this book demonstrates that differences in actual working hours between industrialized and developing countries remain considerable – without any clear sign of hours being reduced. Th...
pt. 1. List of patentees.--pt. 2. Index to subjects of inventions.
Die Politikwissenschaft entdeckt ihre Wurzeln.
Die biirgerliche Gesellschaft gilt allgemein als individualistische; "im Mittelpunkt steht der Mensch" (wie Werbeslogans uns gem weismachen), und zwar als Einzel-Konsument wie als Einzel-Wahler. Basis dieser Ge sellschaftsformation ist indessen nicht das Individuum all' sich, sondem sein Interesse. Wie gleich zu sehen sein wird, ist sein Interesse nicht iden tisch mit seinen Bediirfnissen, Wiinschen, Strebungen; es ist nicht einmal identisch mit deren (abstrahierendem) Substrat, sondem stets schon geseIl schaftlich vermittelt. Das "authentische" Interesse des Individuums exi stiert nur in der Utopie, in einer "Welt ohne Gesellschaft". Insofem lieBe sich sagen, daB VermittIungsprozesse die Gesellschaft konstituieren. Die biirgerliche Gesellschaft wiederum konstituiert sic- zumindest insoweit sie sich als demokratische versteht -durch Prozesse der Interessenvermittlung. Damit ist von vornherein nicht nur betrachtliche Komplexitat, sondem vor allem auch die QueUe vieif.