Product Description: Democracies are transforming worldwide, but at the same time political inequality is increasing. This development threatens to leave growing portions of mass publics effectively ‘outside’ the political process. This volume brings together leading authorities in the field of democratic citizenship and participation to address pertinent questions concerning the quality of the democratic political process at the beginning of the twenty-first century...read more

Product Description: European citizenship has been a key issue since the Treaty of Maastricht. Both governmental and non-governmental actors have seen the extension of the citizenship provisions as an important part of the drive to democratize the EU...read more

Product Description: This book attempts to address an important question: where is the European project going? As Europe struggles with the most profound economic and social crises in recent history, what happens to the promises of freedom, democracy, equality and respect for the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person proclaimed in the Preamble of the Treaty on European Union? How does the European Union intend to demonstrate its commitment to fundamental social rights at a time of widespread deregulation and an increasingly precarious labour market? How can we further enhance the democratic and efficient functioning of European institutions when there is a growing distance between citizens and political elites? This publication is based on papers given at the international conference «Citizenship and Solidarity in the European Union - from the Charter of Fundamental Rights to the Crisis: The State of the Art», which took place in the School of Law at the University of Minho, Portugal, in May 2012...read more

Product Description: The contributors to this new book analyse the opportunities for civil society associations to contribute to European integration and decision-making from various perspectives. The research demonstrates that the Europeanization process - in terms of civil society actors adapting to the European political space - has an uneven development...read more

Product Description: It is often argued that the enhanced consultation of civil society contributes to the democratization of European and global governance. This collection investigates whether this theoretical argument is supported by empirical evidence...read more

Product Description: Is the process of European integration shifting the targets of social movements from the national arena to the European Union level? Does the EU remain isolated from the reach of national democratic politics? Or are social movements responding to the transnational issues posed by the European Union, but continuing to do so by treading the traditional pathways of nation-specific contentious politics? Addressing these key but hitherto unexplored questions, this groundbreaking volume explores how European citizens are responding to the growing policymaking power of the EU...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: ,The papers in this collection, written by a cross-regional group of experts, provide insights into the causes of declining levels of citizen participation and other distinct forms of civic activism in Europe and explore a range of factors contributing to apathy and eventually disengagement from vital political processes and institutions...read more

Product Description: This volume provides a novel and relational sociological approach to the study of EU civil society. It focuses on the interactions and interrelations between civil society actors and the forms of capital that structure the fields and sub-fields of EU civil society, through new and important empirical studies on organized EU civil society...read more

Product Description: Europe and Civil Society provides an in-depth examination of how public interest groups and social movements seek to influence the European policy-making process. The book is based on a comparison of the role of networks of activists and their allies - broadly defined as Movement Advocacy Coalitions - in influencing decision-making at the European Union level in three specific areas of policy-making: environmentalism, anti-racism and ethno-nationalist regionalism...read more

Product Description: The European Union has come under pressure from different sides. First, it is undergoing a period of institutional and political reforms which are, however, progressing slowly. Secondly, its shape is being influenced decisively by the inclusion of new Member States...read more

Product Description: Pragmatics is the study of human communication: the choices speakers make to express their intended meaning and the kinds of inferences that hearers draw from an utterance in the context of its use. This Handbook surveys pragmatics from different perspectives, presenting the main theories in pragmatic research, incorporating seminal research as well as cutting-edge solutions...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The book provides an assessment of European Union communications policy judged against democratic and normative criteria within the framework of the question of the need for a European wide public sphere. Taking as a starting point the democratic deficit and the problem of a lack of a developed public sphere at a level that is equal in scale and scope to the decision making bodies of the European Community, the book evaluates the extent to which, the EU has attempted to employ communication policy to support democratic media...read more