What is democracy? How do we know when we have it? Is liberal democracy merely one, or the only, version of democracy, realizable at governmental level? What is the relation between democracy and human rights? This text attempts to answer these and…
Max Weber's writings on the politics of Wilhelmine in Germany and the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 are much less well known than his contributions to historical and theoretical sociology, yet they are essential to any overall assessment of h…
The new edition of this classic text provides a comprehensive introduction to the concept of legitimacy as applied to political systems. Now addressing the issue of legitimacy beyond the state, the book also includes a new introduction and two major…
Fascism's ascent to power across Europe in the 1920s & 30s marks one of the greatest historical defeats of the left in history. Far from inevitable, this catastrophic defeat was resisted at every turn by Marxists of varying stripes who tried, unsucc…
Fascism's ascent to power across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s marks one of the greatest historical defeats of the left in all of history. Yet, this catastrophic de- feat was resisted at every turn by Marxists who tried, unsuccessfully, to push the…
Democratic Institutions and Practices is the second study carried out under the Democratic Audit of the UK. This volume explores the formal institutions and processes of the liberal democratic state: including the executive, elections, parliament an…
The rapid worldwide phase of democratization since the 1980s has stimulated a renewed interest in how we define and measure democracy. The contributors to this volume include leading political theorists, political scientists and experts in comparati…
As the U.S. strives to establish democracy in Iraq and contemplates its own democratic system in the wake of a series of controversial presidential elections, David Beetham offers new insights into democracy. He looks at real examples such as the ro…
This volume of specially commissioned articles is devoted to a consideration of how the subject of human rights impacts on contemporary politics and on the discipline of political science. It assesses the role of human rights in political theory, in…
What is democracy? Why should we value it? What is the relation between democracy and individual rights? Is majority rule always democratic? Why do we have political parties? Are some electoral systems more democratic than others? What is the relati…
This text assembles 80 of the most pressing questions about democracy, systematically arranged in six sections: basic concepts and principles; free and fair elections; open and accountable government; individual rights and their defence; democratic…
A distillation of important themes from the literature on bureaucracy. This revised edition is a useful introduction that provides a compelling analysis of one of the most pervasive, and yet poorly understood, features of contemporary society. David…
With the ideology of democracy under more global scrutiny than ever in the wake of the war on Iraq and suspicions over election results, David Beetham offers new insights into democracy. He looks at real examples such as the role of the citizen and…
Most of the contemporary debates about the European Union - about its role, its institutional arrangements, its development dynamic, its expansion and possible futures - revolve around the issue of political legitimacy. Legitimacy and the European U…
