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Understanding Democratic Politics
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Understanding Democratic Politics
An Introduction

First Edition
Edited by:

Other Titles in:
Democracy | Politics (General)

February 2003 | 340 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
This textbook is designed for first-time students of politics. It provides an ideal introduction and survey to the key themes and issues central to the study of democratic politics today.

The text is structured around three major parts: concepts, institutions and political behaviour; and ideologies and movements. Within each section a series of short and accessible chapters serve to both introduce the key ideas, institutional forms and ideological conflicts central to the study of democratic politics and provide a platform for further, in-depth studies.

Each chapter contains a 'bullet-point' summary, a guide to further reading, and a set of questions for tutorial discussion. Designed and written for an undergraduate readership, Understanding Democratic Politics: An Introduction will become an essential guide and companion to all students of politics throughout their university degree.

 
PART ONE: CONCEPTS
Roland Axtmann
Sovereignty
Neil Walker
Constitutionalism
David Beetham
Human Rights and Democracy
Vittorio Bufacchi
Justice, Equality, Liberty
Noël O'Sullivan
Power, Authority, Legitimacy
Michael Saward
Representative and Direct Democracy
Thomas O Hueglin
Majoritarianism
Consociationalism

 
Judith Squires
Pluralism
Difference

 
Roland Axtmann
Civil Society
National and Global

 
Roland Axtmann and Robert Grant
Class
Elites

 
 
PART TWO: INSTITUTIONS AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOUR
Michael Keating
The Territorial State
Grant Jordan and Emma Clarence
Government, Civil Service and Public Policies
David Arter
Parliaments
Byron Criddle
Parties and Party Systems
Michael Dyer
Elections and Electoral Systems
Wyn Grant
Interest Groups
Lynn G Bennie
Social Movements
George Moyser
Political Participation
William A Maloney and Linda Stevenson
Social Capital
Michael Lister and Daniel Wincott
The Welfare State and Democracy
Peter Ferdinand
Cyber-democracy
Roland Axtmann
Democratic Citizenship in the Age of Globalization
 
PART THREE: IDEOLOGIES AND MOVEMENTS
Antonino Palumbo
Liberalism
Arthur Aughey
Conservatism
Terrell Carver
Socialism
Marxism

 
Patricia Clark and Sharif Gemie
Anarchism and Democracy
Alain Dieckhoffx
Nationalism
Anders Widfeldt
Contemporary Right-Wing Extremism
Kimberly Hutchings
Feminism
John Barry
Environmentalism
Abdelwahab El-Affendi
Democracy and the Islamist Paradox
Nicholas Rengger
Cosmopolitanism

covers several topics of relevance to the course

Dr Rachael Chapman
Dept. of social sciences, Northumbria University
November 15, 2012

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