Communism And The Emergence Of Democracy

Author : Harald Wydra
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2007-02-08
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781139462181

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Communism and the Emergence of Democracy by Harald Wydra Pdf

Before democracy becomes an institutionalised form of political authority, the rupture with authoritarian forms of power causes deep uncertainty about power and outcomes. This book connects the study of democratisation in eastern Europe and Russia to the emergence and crisis of communism. Wydra argues that the communist past is not simply a legacy but needs to be seen as a social organism in gestation, where critical events produce new expectations, memories and symbols that influence meanings of democracy. By examining a series of pivotal historical events, he shows that democratisation is not just a matter of institutional design, but rather a matter of consciousness and leadership under conditions of extreme and traumatic incivility. Rather than adopting the opposition between non-democratic and democratic, Wydra argues that the communist experience must be central to the study of the emergence and nature of democracy in (post-) communist countries.

Author : Mike Makin-Waite
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Communism
ISBN : 191044877X

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Communism and Democracy by Mike Makin-Waite Pdf

On the centenary of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Mike Makin-Waite surveys the history of the communist movement, tracking its origins in the Enlightenment, and through nineteenth-century socialism to the emergence of Marxism and beyond. As we emerge from the long winter of neoliberalism, and the search is on for ideas that can help shape a contemporary popular socialism, some of the questions that have preoccupied socialist thinkers throughout left history are once more being debated. Should the left press for reform and work through the state or should it focus on protest and a critique of the whole system? Is it possible to expand the liberal idea of democracy to include economic democracy? Which alliances require too great a compromise and which can help secure future change? Arguments on questions such as these have been raging since the mid-nineteenth century, and were the basis of the split between Social Democrats and Communists in the aftermath of the First World War. Mike Makin-Waite believes that revisiting these debates can help us to avoid some of the mistakes made in the past, and find new solutions to some of these age-old concerns. His argument is that the democratic and liberal counter-currents that have always existed within the communist movement have much to offer the left project today. This unorthodox account therefore tracks an alternative history that includes nineteenth-century revisionists such as Karl Kautsky, Menshevik opponents of Bolshevik oppression in 1917, Popular Front critiques of sectarianism in the 1930s, communist support for 1968's Prague Spring, and the turn to Gramsci and Eurocommunism in the 1970s. The aim of Communism and Democracy: history, debates and potentials is to recover some of the hard-won insights of the critical communist tradition, in the belief that they can still be of service to the twenty-first-century left.

Author : Valerie Bunce,Michael McFaul,Kathryn Stoner-Weiss
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2009-11-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781139483865

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Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Postcommunist World by Valerie Bunce,Michael McFaul,Kathryn Stoner-Weiss Pdf

Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Postcommunist World examines three waves of democratic change that took place in eleven different former Communist nations. It draws important conclusions about the rise, development, and breakdown of both democracy and dictatorship in each country, providing a comparative perspective on the post-Communist world. The first democratic wave to sweep this region encompasses the rapid rise of democratic regimes from 1989 to 1992 from the ashes of Communism and Communist states. The second wave arose with accession to the European Union (from 2004 to 2007) and the third, with the electoral defeat of dictators (1996 to 2005) in Croatia, Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine. The authors of each chapter in this volume examine both internal and external dimensions of both democratic success and failure.

Author : Janina Frentzel-Zagórska
Publisher : Rodopi
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : Cultural pluralism
ISBN : 905183523X

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From a One-party State to Democracy by Janina Frentzel-Zagórska Pdf

Author : John H. Kautsky
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 1968
Category : Communism
ISBN : UCAL:B4421314

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Communism and the Politics of Development by John H. Kautsky Pdf

Study of communist strategy within the framework of economic development, with particular reference to developing countries - covers the role of USSR and the role of China in development of the communist political party in developing countries, the role of intellectuals in social change, etc., and includes a case study of postwar development of Indian communist party strategy. References.

Author : Richard D. Anderson Jr.,M. Steven Fish,Stephen E. Hanson,Philip G. Roeder
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 215 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2021-05-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780691230948

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Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy by Richard D. Anderson Jr.,M. Steven Fish,Stephen E. Hanson,Philip G. Roeder Pdf

Why did the wave of democracy that swept the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe starting more than a decade ago develop in ways unexpected by observers who relied on existing theories of democracy? In Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy, four distinguished scholars conduct the first major assessment of democratization theory in light of the experience of postcommunist states. Richard Anderson, Steven Fish, Stephen Hanson, and Philip Roeder not only apply theory to practice, but using a wealth of empirical evidence, draw together the elements of existing theory into new syntheses. The authors each highlight a development in postcommunist societies that reveals an anomaly or lacuna in existing theory. They explain why authoritarian leaders abandon authoritarianism, why democratization sometimes reverses course, how subjects become citizens by beginning to take sides in politics, how rulers become politicians by beginning to seek popular support, and not least, how democracy becomes consolidated. Rather than converging on a single approach, each author shows how either a rationalist, institutionalist, discursive, or Weberian approach sheds light on this transformation. They conclude that the experience of postcommunist democracy demands a rethinking of existing theory. To that end, they offer rich new insights to scholars, advanced students, policymakers, and anyone interested in postcommunist states or in comparative democratization.

Author : Mike Makin-Waite
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2017-12-07
Category : Communism
ISBN : 1910448761

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Communism and Democracy by Mike Makin-Waite Pdf

Author : Alexandros Chrysis
Publisher : Springer
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2017-12-10
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9783319575414

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‘True Democracy’ as a Prelude to Communism by Alexandros Chrysis Pdf

This book constitutes a critical intervention in the theoretical discussion over the political relationship between democracy and communism. Shedding light on the philosophical origins of the democracy debate, it draws a clear demarcation line between liberalism and republicanism, arguing that after rejecting the former and supporting the latter, the young Marx endorsed 'true democracy' as a prelude to his forthcoming theory of communism. To this end, while following the dynamics of the Marxian history of political ideas and pre-communist theory of the state, the book takes into account the thought of a vast range of philosophers and political theorists, starting from the Ancient times (Aristotle), passing through the Age of Enlightenment (Spinoza, Rousseau), the German Idealist tradition (Hegel) the Young Hegelians’ Republicanism (Bauer, Ruge, Feuerbach), and reaching our own times (Arendt, Colletti, MacPherson, Castoriadis, Poulantzas). It will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the history of political thought, theories of democracy, and Marxism.

Author : Michael Gehler,Piotr H. Kosicki,Helmut Wohnout
Publisher : Leuven University Press
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2019-11-20
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9789462702165

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Christian Democracy and the Fall of Communism by Michael Gehler,Piotr H. Kosicki,Helmut Wohnout Pdf

Debates on the role of Christian Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe too often remain strongly tied to national historiographies. With the edited collection the contributing authors aim to reconstruct Christian Democracy’s role in the fall of Communism from a bird's-eye perspective by covering the entire region and by taking “third-way” options in the broader political imaginary of late-Cold War Europe into account. The book’s twelve chapters present the most recent insights on this topic and connect scholarship on the Iron Curtain’s collapse with scholarship on political Catholicism. Christian Democracy and the Fall of Communism offers the reader a two-fold perspective. The first approach examines the efforts undertaken by Western European actors who wanted to foster or support Christian Democratic initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe. The second approach is devoted to the (re-)emergence of homegrown Christian Democratic formations in the 1980s and 1990s. One of the volume’s seminal contributions lies in its documentation of the decisive role that Christian Democracy played in supporting the political and anti-political forces that engineered the collapse of Communism from within between 1989 and 1991.

Author : Margaret Latus Nugent
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2019-03-08
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780429715518

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From Leninism To Freedom by Margaret Latus Nugent Pdf

This book stimulates inquiry into questions about how to facilitate and consolidate transitions from Leninism to market-oriented democracies. It allows readers to appreciate the diversity of opinion that exists on such questions as the causes for what happened and the prospects for the future.

Author : Larry Diamond,Marc F. Plattner
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2002-09-23
Category : History
ISBN : 0801870763

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Democracy After Communism by Larry Diamond,Marc F. Plattner Pdf

The last quarter of the twentieth century was marked by two dramatic political trends that altered many of the world's regimes: the global resurgence of democracy and the collapse of communism. Was the process that brought down communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union fundamentally different from the process that gave birth to new democracies in other regions of the world? Were the transitions away from communism mostly like or mostly unlike the transitions away from authoritarianism that took place elsewhere? Is the challenge of building and consolidating democracy under postcommunist conditions unique, or can one apply lessons learned from other new democracies? The essays collected in this volume explore these questions, while tracing how the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have fared in the decade following the fall of communism. Contributors: Anders Åslund, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.; Leszek Balcerowicz, Warsaw School of Economics; Archie Brown, Oxford University and St. Antony's College; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Johns Hopkins University, a former U.S. national security advisor; Valerie Bunce, Cornell University; Nadia Diuk, National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C.; M. Steven Fish, University of California–Berkeley; Charles H. Fairbanks Jr., the Johns Hopkins University; Bronislaw Geremek, former foreign minister of Poland; John Higley, University of Texas at Austin; Judith Kullberg, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor; Mart Laar, prime minister of Estonia; Michael McFaul, Stanford University; Ghia Nodia, Tbilisi State University; Jan Pakulski, University of Tasmania in Australia; Richard Rose, University of Strathclyde in Glasgow; Jacques Rupnik, College of Europe in Bruges; Lilia Shevtsova, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.; Aleksander Smolar, Stefan Batory Foundation in Warsaw and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris; G.M. Tamás formerly of Georgetown University; Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland at College Park; Grigory Yavlinsky, member of the Russian State Duma (parliament).

Author : Mohamed Ismail Sabry
Publisher : Emerald Group Publishing
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2017-09-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781787433731

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The Development of Socialism, Social Democracy and Communism by Mohamed Ismail Sabry Pdf

This book examines how socioeconomic and institutional factors shaped the development of Socialism and its two contending variants of Social Democracy and Communism, investigating why each of these factions enjoyed varying levels of popularity in different societies between 1840 and 1945.

Author : Sten Berglund
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1782541152

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Challenges to Democracy by Sten Berglund Pdf

'The book is written in a systematic, clear and accessible style and provides an excellent introduction to the state of democracy in contemporary postsocialist Europe. . . . Recommended for undergraduate, graduate, research, and faculty collections.' - P. Rutland, Choice The euphoria evidenced in the aftermath of the collapse of communist regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s sometimes conveyed the impression that the process of democratization would be achieved without difficulty or tribulation. This book sets out to provide a thorough comparative analysis of the challenges which face the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and considers the impact of political change. Drawing heavily on available survey data, the book provides an in-depth account of how the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe have coped with four major challenges: political fragmentation, nationalism, lack of respect for human rights, and poorly developed civil service systems. The book demonstrates that although the first few years of the 1990s were marked by increasing disenchantment with the new regimes, the change of governments as a direct result of the electoral process and the prospects for European integration have served to reverse this negative trend. Indeed, the authors find that the new political systems have managed to cope with the challenges so effectively that striking similarities with Western democracies are now apparent.

Author : Claude Lefort
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : History
ISBN : 0231133006

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Complications by Claude Lefort Pdf

Complications: Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracyties together the central concerns of the work of Claude Lefort over the past half-century. A pivotal figure in French thought, Lefort studied under Maurice Merleau-Ponty, cofounded with Cornelius Castoriadis the influential journal Socialisme ou Barbarie, and famously engaged in a heated debate with Jean-Paul Sartre over the Soviet Union and Communist parties in the West. He has influenced generations of political thinkers and throughout his career has offered invaluable leftist, non-communist critiques of both liberalism and Communism. It is the prevailing belief that the death of communism was a victory for liberal democracy. In Complications, however, Lefort challenges this interpretation and provides new ways of understanding the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and the Communist phenomenon. Lefort engages the work of prominent historians Martin Malia and Francois Furet and shows how their emphasis on "illusion" and ideology led to their failure to understand the logic and workings of the Communist Party, and its impact on Soviet society, and the reasons why so many in the West had Communist sympathies. He also maintains that those who regard the end of Communism as the triumph of markets and "freedom" restrict the scope of democratic thought and the possibility of greater social equality. Lefort contends that Communism must be seen as part of a larger history of modernity and believes that the diagnosis of its death is dangerous to the future of democracy. In the tradition of Hannah Arendt and Raymond Aron, Lefort complicates the pieties of historical understanding and offers a new approach to thinking about totalitarianism and a more vital democracy.

Author : David Childs
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : History
ISBN : 0415221951

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The Two Red Flags by David Childs Pdf

An incisive account of the impact of socialism on the life and politics of Europe and the former Soviet bloc in the twentieth century. It covers the origins of socialism in those countries where it had most impact.