Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Comparative Politics

Over the past decade, the study of Canadian politics has changed profoundly. The introspective, insular, and largely atheoretical style that informed Canadian political science for most of the postwar period has given way to a deeper engagement with, and integration into, the global field of comparative politics.

This volume is the first sustained attempt to describe, analyze, and assess the ?comparative turn? in Canadian political science. Canada's engagement with comparative politics is examined with a focus on three central questions: In what ways, and how successfully, have...

Gendering the Nation-State explores the gendered dimensions of a fundamental organizational unit in social and political science -- the nation-state. Yasmeen Abu-Laban has drawn together work by both high-profile and emerging scholars to rescue gender from the margins of theoretical discussions on the nation, the state, public policy, and citizenship. Contributors bring the insights of feminist analysis to bear on three relationships central to popular and policy discussions in contemporary Canada and beyond: gender and nation, gender and state processes, and gender and...

This book explores the ways in which political parties, in contemporary parliamentary democracies, choose their leaders and then subsequently hold them accountable. The authors provide a comprehensive examination of party leadership selection and accountability both through examination of parties and countries in different institutional settings and through a holistic analysis of the role of party leaders and the methods through which they assume, and exit, the office.

The collection includes essays on Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Portugal,...

Many residents of the Middle East - and more recently, Western powers - have placed great hope in democratization in the region. Yet authoritarianism remains the norm and movement towards democracy is both slow and uneven.

The Struggle over Democracy in the Middle East examines democracy and democratization in the light of regional realities rather than the wishful thinking of outsiders. Specialists from the region analyze democratic prospects in the region, while accomplished scholars from the United States and the United Kingdom analyze Western policy, providing a...

Federalism has experienced a remarkable renaissance in recent decades - as an alternative way to accommodate ethnic differences; as a tool to combat remote, undemocratic and ineffective central governments; and lastly, as a means to promote economic performance in the developing world through decentralisation.

This book seeks to bring different aspects and perspectives of federalism studies closer together, by providing an analytical framework which transcends the sub-fields and encourages contributors to look beyond the comfort zones of their own disciplinary approaches to the...

The past quarter of a century has seen extensive change throughout Europe. There have been significant changes in local government, and the European Union has come to play an increasing role in relation to municipal government.

This book offers a comparative analysis of recent developments in intergovernmental relations in twelve countries across Europe. Using the framework for analysis from Page and Goldsmith's 1987 Central and Local Government Relations, each chapter examines changes in central-local relations in their respective country over the past 20 years....

The years 1990-93 were a critical moment in Russia's political development. This book provides a systematic explanation of outcomes of constitutional bargaining processes in Russia, which radically reshaped the institutions of the Russian state: removing Russia from constitutional subordination to the Soviet Union in 1990; creating a presidency and a constitutional court in 1991; and restructuring the relationship between the central state and its component federal units with the passage of three Federal Treaties in 1992. The book explores the reasons for these outcomes and identifies why...

This volume addresses an important and problematic aspect of NGO activities in Africa: NGO-African state relations. The authors of this volume offer case studies that provide insights into the range of NGO activities that address the questions: what do NGO activities mean for the African State? and how are the relationships of NGOs and African states changing? Each chapter contains a rich investigation and analysis communicating many of the practical aspects of African state-NGO relations, as well as many insights relevant to the major theories and models available to researchers in the...