Multiple Democracies in Europe: Political Culture in New Member States

ISBN-13: 9780415492737 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 224 str.

Paul Blokker

Opis

This book provides a detailed analysis of democracy in Europe, with a focus on the new member states, and makes an important and original contribution to the debate on the future of European democracy.

Blokker seeks to provide a critical reconceptualization of democratic political culture and develops a ‘multiple democracies’ theoretical approach. He draws on debates in democratization theory and normative political theory, and presents a cultural-sociological approach for the analysis of democratization and democratic regimes. This approach emphasizes the historical and cultural embedment of democracy and identifies a potential variety of ‘ethics of democracy’ that underpin democratic political cultures, and the possibility of democratic innovation on the basis of novel combinations of such ethics.

The book explores the relevance of this approach by analysing the dominant political cultures and their role in the emergence of democratic regimes in three countries in Hungary, Poland, and Romania, providing a detailed description and analysis of democratic political cultures in the three cases, and the identification of distinct politico-cultural elements that distinguish these societies from each other.

It will be of interest to students and scholars of democracy, European studies, post-communist studies, political theory and comparative politics.

Spis treści

1. Introduction: The Cultural Dimension of Democracy  Part 1  2. Democratization Theory and Political Culture  3. Political Theory and Political Culture  4. Democratic Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach  5. Post-Communism, Political Cultures, and Constitutionalisms  Part 2  6. Constitutional Politics in Three New Member States  7. Political Cultures and Constitutional Texts  8. Political Elite Perceptions of National Democracy  9. Political Elite Perceptions of European Democracy  10. Conclusions

O autorze

Paul Blokker is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology, University of Trento, Italy.