When money equates to power and the system is rigged in favor of wealthy elites, why do we still pretend we are living in a democracy? In Living under Post-Democracy, Caleb R. Miller challenges us to admit what we already know: that most of us are effectively powerless over the political decisions that govern our lives. Instead, we should embrace a 'post-democratic' view of politics, one which recognizes the way in which our political institutions fail—both systematically and historically—to live up to our democratic ideals, while also acknowledging our tragic, yet enduring attachment to them both. Offering a new framework for conceptualizing contemporary citizenship, Miller explores how a post-democratic perspective can help us begin to reorient ourselves in our paradoxical, fractured political landscape. This model of citizenship opens the possibility for a distinctly post-democratic approach to both political participation and political philosophy, treating them not as ways of affecting politics, but as opportunities for therapeutically engaging with the ongoing challenges and inevitable frustrations of post-democratic life. This book is an excellent addition to courses on democratic theory, as well as introductory courses to political theory.

In Post-Democracy (Polity, 2004) Colin Crouch argued that behind the façade of strong institutions, democracy in many advanced societies was being hollowed out, its big events becoming empty rituals as power passed increasingly to circles of wealthy business elites and an ever-more isolated political class. Crouch’s provocative argument has in many ways been vindicated by recent events, but these have also highlighted some weaknesses of the original thesis and shown that the situation today is even worse. The global financial deregulation that was the jewel in the crown of wealthy elite lobbying brought us the financial crisis and helped stimulate xenophobic movements which no longer accept the priority of institutions that safeguard democracy, like the rule of law. The rise of social media has enabled a handful of very rich individuals and institutions to target vast numbers of messages at citizens, giving a false impression of debate that is really stage-managed from a small number of concealed sources. Crouch evaluates the implications of these and other developments for his original thesis, arguing that while much of his thesis remains sound, he had under-estimated the value of institutions which are vital to the support of a democratic order. He also confronts the challenge of populists who seem to echo the complaints of Post-Democracy but whose pessimistic nostalgia brings an anti-democratic brew of hatred, exclusion and violence.

To many, the rejections of the Constitutional Treaty by Dutch and French voters in 2005 came as a shock. However, given the many tensions and the many unresolved issues it was quite unsurprising. The challenges facing the Constitutional debate go to the core of the European integration process as they have to do with the terms on which to establish a post-national political order. This book deals with four themes which make up the main sources of the ‘constitutional crisis’: The problem of the rule of law in a context of governance beyond the nation state The problem of the social deficit of the Union The problem of identity and collective memories The problem of institutionalizing post-national democracy. These themes constitute the unfinished agenda of the European integration process. Law, Democracy and Solidarity in a Post-national Union is based on the efforts of a collection of top scholars in the fields of Law, Political Science, Sociology and Economics, and will appeal to students and scholars of political science, the European Union and European studies.

Common Hegemony, Populism, and the New Municipalism critically explores the global rise of an alternative democratic politics since the 1990s in both practice and theory, from the Zapatistas’ insurrection to the 2011 cycle of democratic contestation and the ensuing municipalist movement in Spain. Staging an alternative to mainstream politics in both its statist and its activist variants, Alexandros Kioupkiolis combines a comprehensive and in-depth account of contemporary alter-politics with an extensive treatment of strategic challenges and broaches the question of strategy through theories of hegemony which are revisited and renewed by taking our lead from contemporary social movements and practices. Specific movements such as 15-M, and new municipalism, are examined to understand how these have transfigured the counter-hegemonic politics in the direction of egalitarianism, diversity, and grassroots self-government. Common Hegemony, Populism, and the New Municipalism will be of interest to researchers and students of contemporary political theory, democratic theory, and social movement studies.

This book outlines the notion of ‘lived democracy in education’, bringing together interdisciplinary educational research on young citizens’ democratic practices in kindergartens, schools, and teacher education. Presenting both theoretical and empirical studies, and drawing on a variety of approaches, the book investigates participatory education practices where young learners are given the opportunity to influence a course of action or a discussion through expressing arguments, information and critique. Lived democracy in education is understood as opportunities for young learners to influence a decision or line of thought through enacting the values of freedom of speech and equality, and the book shows how such opportunities can be positioned in educational practices. Chapters also investigate what kind of pedagogical situations promote lived democracy and what qualities are present in these situations. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, graduate students and post-graduate students in the fields of educational theory, educational philosophy and democracy in education concerning several school subjects.

The recent history of post-Soviet societies is heavily shaped by the successor nations’ efforts to geopolitically re-identify themselves and to reify certain majorities in them. As a result of these fascinating processes, various new ideologies have appeared. Some are specific to the post-Soviet space while others are comparable to ideational processes in other parts of the world. In this collected volume, an international group of contributors delves deeper into recent theoretical constructions of various post-Soviet majorities, the ideologies that justify them, and some respectively formulated policy prescriptions. The first part analyzes post-Soviet state-builders’ fixation on certain constructed majorities as well as on these imagined communities’ symbolic self-identifications, in- or outward othering, and national languages. The second part deals specifically with post-Soviet ideas of sovereigntism and the way they define majorities as well as imply changes in internal and external policies and legal systems. These processes are analyzed in comparison to similar phenomena in Western societies. The book’s contributors include (in the order of their appearance): Natalia Kudriavtseva, Petra Colmorgen, Nadiia Koval, Ivan Gomza, Augusto Dala Costa, Roman Horbyk, Yana Prymachenko, Yuliya Yurchuk, Oleksandr Fisun, Nataliya Vinnykova, Ruslan Zaporozhchenko, Mikhail Minakov, Gulnara Shaikhutdinova, and Yurii Mielkov.

Primarily for academics and undergraduate and postgraduate students, offer a source of reference and teaching resource for Planning Schools.

Representative politics is in crisis. Trust in politiciansis at an all-time low. Fewer people are voting or joining politicalparties, and our interest in parliamentary politics is decliningfast. Even oppositional and radical parties that should bebenefitting from public disenchantment with politics aresuffering. But different forms of political activity are emerging toreplace representative politics: instant politics, direct action,insurgent politics. We are leaving behind traditionalrepresentation, and moving towards a politics withoutrepresentatives. In this provocative new book, Simon Tormeyexplores the changes that are underway, drawing on a rich range ofexamples from the Arab Spring to the Indignados uprising in Spain,street protests in Brazil and Turkey to the emergence of newinitiatives such as Anonymous and Occupy. Tormey argues that the easy assumptions that informed our thinkingabout the nature and role of parties, and ‘party baseddemocracy’ have to be rethought. We are entering a period offast politics, evanescent politics, a politics of the street, ofthe squares, of micro-parties, pop-up parties, and demonstrations.This may well be the end of representative politics as we know it,but an exciting new era of political engagement is justbeginning.

This book explores the substance and strategies of democracy promotion conducted by the Visegrad Group states (V4) – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. As these states are currently deemed to face democratic backsliding over thirty years after their own democratic transformations, the book discusses how democracy promotion is related to the four countries’ understanding of liberalism and democracy and to their political cultures. It also addresses the question of what motivates the V4 states to engage in the politically sensitive activities of democracy assistance and how they intend to share their own experience and know-how of the democratic transformation process. The book concludes by discussing the possible future developments in the respective states’ democracy promotion agendas. Examining the strategies, substance, and the domestic discourse related to the Visegrad states’ democracy promotion policies, the book presents a much-needed reflection on a niche subject in the foreign policy agendas of these post-communist states for academics and practitioners alike.