Bücher der Reihe Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century

This book is the product of three years of empirical research, four years in politics, and a lifetime in a country experiencing three different regimes.

In undemocratic settings, where modes of political participation and interest mediation are severely limited, protest may become a major form of political action.

This edited volume explores the relationship between constitutionalism and populism in the Italian context. Indeed, populism frequently relies on concepts and categories belonging to the language of constitutionalism (majority, democracy, people), offering a kind of constitutional counter-narrative.

This book develops a new theoretical framework for studying the interaction between political parties, the news media and citizens. The model addresses how political actors develop and push different arguments in a debate, how the news media select and communicate these arguments, and how they ultimately influence citizens' democratic decisions.

This book provides the analytical framework for understanding the relationship between media scandals, executive accountability and the crisis of democracy.

This edited volume explores the relationship between constitutionalism and populism in the Italian context. Indeed, populism frequently relies on concepts and categories belonging to the language of constitutionalism (majority, democracy, people), offering a kind of constitutional counter-narrative.

This open access book carefully explores the relationship between social democracy and its working-class electorate in Western Europe.

The comparative study demonstrates that competitive opposition parties in dominant party systems are rooted in the historical legacy of political cleavages related to de-colonization that precede the third wave of democratization of the 1990s and have survived the instability of post-independence political developments to the present day.

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.

They argue that the form of state-formation affects the probability for democratization in new states and that the initial regime that state-formation establishes at the time of independence has long-term effects on new states' democratization.

This book addresses some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is democracy threatened by globalisation? Further insights are gained by examining the impact on democracy of the global screen culture of Television and the Internet, and by pointing out the lessons democracy should learn from diplomacy to fare better in the future.

This book deals with post-Cold War processes of autocratization, that is, regime change towards autocracy.

They argue that the form of state-formation affects the probability for democratization in new states and that the initial regime that state-formation establishes at the time of independence has long-term effects on new states' democratization.

This book addresses some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is democracy threatened by globalisation? Further insights are gained by examining the impact on democracy of the global screen culture of Television and the Internet, and by pointing out the lessons democracy should learn from diplomacy to fare better in the future.

The book investigates the driving factors for high news performance in digital media environments. It develops a comprehensive theoretical model and empirically investigates 48 online news outlets with different types of ownership, located in 6 Western countries (France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, and USA).

Analyzes the communication processes in direct democratic campaigns and their effect on the opinion formation of the voters. Based on a detailed analysis of the politicians' strategies, media coverage and the opinion formation of the public in three campaigns, this book argues that the campaigns are more enlightening than manipulating.