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Life Advice from Below
In Life Advice from Below, Eric C. Hendriks offers the first systematic, comparative study of the globalization of American-style self-help culture and the cultural conflicts this creates in different national contexts. The self-help guru is an archetypical American figure associated with individualism, materialism and the American Dream. Nonetheless, the self-help industry is spreading globally, thriving in China and other seemingly unlikely places. Controversy follows in its wake, as the self-help industry, operating outside of formal education and state institutions, outflanks philosophical, religious and political elites who have their own visions of the Good Life. Through a comparison o...
Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy
This book provides a unique collection of over 30 methods to study deliberative democracy. Written in an accessible style, it provides guidance for scholars and students on how to conduct rigorous and creative research on the public sphere, structured forums, and political institutions.
The Spirit of Luc Boltanski
What is the relevance of Luc Boltanski’s ‘pragmatic sociology of critique’ to central issues in contemporary social and political analysis? In seeking to respond to this question, this book contains critical commentaries from prominent social theorists attempting to map out the influence and broad scope of Boltanski’s oeuvre.
Transnationalization of Public Spheres
This book takes a fresh look at a widely debated question in international relations and political communication research: How can public discourses contribute to democratic governance beyond the nation state? The book combines quantitative and qualitative analyses of media content and evaluates them from a democratic theory perspective.
Democracy's Deep Roots
Does the democratic nation state remain a legitimate regime form in the current age of globalization? Sceptical assessments of the nation state's legitimacy and outright crisis diagnoses prevail in the academic literature, especially in the contributions of public-opinion researchers. Democracy's Deep Roots uses a novel, text-analytical approach to probe this topical question. Drawing on a comparative study of legitimation discourses in the quality press of four Western democracies (Switzerland, Germany, Britain and the United States), it shows that the levels and democratic foundations of public support for the nation state and its core institutions are surprisingly robust. There is little evidence for the fully-fledged erosion of legitimacy or for a transformation of its foundations in the public spheres of Western democracies. The book also identifies a number of discursive mechanisms that explain this finding and suggests an analytical frame-work for future research into the communicative dimension of legitimation processes. --Book Jacket.
Transformation of Education Policy
This book deals with the political consequences of the PISA Study forsecondary education and the Bologna Process for tertiary education. Both are prominent political issues with substantial impact on thepolitical debate all over Europe and beyond. However, scholars of political science and political sociology have been reluctant to give them sufficient attention.
The New Transnationalism
Global rules are increasingly made without the direct involvement of states. This book explores what this privatisation of global rule-making means for democracy. Based on contemporary theoretical approaches to democratic global governance, it reconstructs three prominent rule-making processes in the field of global sustainability politics: the World Commission on Dams, the Global Reporting Initiative and the Forest Stewardship Council. The book argues that, if designed properly, private transnational rule-making can be as democratic as intergovernmental rule-making.
Transnational Public Governance
This book explores the work of transnational bureaucracy networks. These networks address global issues by creating rules – transnational public law – to be incorporated into national legal orders. As classical means fail to legitimize such activities, this book gives a practical account of viable alternative legitimacy mechanisms.
Radical Welfare State Retrenchment
Welfare state retrenchment has been puzzling political scientists--and for that matter, the general public--for years. Why should politicians who wish to be re-elected endeavor to scale back highly popular welfare entitlements? What are the political incentives and opportunities that make such a course of action likely? This book offers an international comparative analysis of welfare state retrenchment, and uniquely includes an indepth examination of its most radical deployment.
Transforming the Golden-Age Nation State
This collection examines the transformation of the modern Western state in an age of accelerated globalization. Arguing that the state experienced a 'golden age' in the 1960s and 1970s, the contributors explore how and why this configuration of the state is under pressure in the 21st century. State functions are increasingly privatized or internationalized indicating a shift to a 'post-national' state and the book traces these tranformations through fields as diverse as taxation, transnational business law, internet governance and education policy.
