Product Description: Even well-established democracies need reform, and any successful effort to reform democracies must look beyond conventional institutions―elections, political parties, special interests, legislatures and their relations with chief executives―to do so...read more

Product Description: Against a broad backdrop of globalization and worldwidede movement toward democracy, the essays in this important new collection examine the unfolding relationships among suchips phenomena as social change, equity, and democratic respresentation of the poor in nine different Latin American countries and Spain...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Latin America underwent remarkable change in the 1980s as country after country cast off authoritarian regimes and instituted democratic policies and practices. Since then, the Left has weakened, and many of the groups commonly labeled the Right--including traditional groups linked with the Church, the military, and the economically privileged, as well as new groups of neo-liberal intellectuals and businessmen--have moved to a new form of active electoral politics...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)