Women, Politics, and Power provides a clear and detailed introduction to women′s political participation and representation across a wide range of countries and regions. Using broad statistical overviews and detailed case-study accounts, authors Pamela Paxton and Melanie Hughes document both historical trends and the contemporary state of women′s political strength across diverse countries. In addition to describing worldwide themes, the book acknowledges differences among women through attention to intersectionality and heterogeneity among women. Dedicated chapters on six geographic regions highlight the distinct paths women may take to political power in different parts of the world. There is simply no other book that offers such a thorough and multidisciplinary synthesis of research on women′s political power around the world.

Product Description: In an ideal democracy, representatives would entirely reflect citizens’ views, preferences and wishes in their legislative work. However, real-life democracies do not meet this ideal and citizens’ policy preferences and priorities are mirrored only inadequately...read more

An international team of scholars offers: • modernised, easily accessible texts • ample but unobtrusive academic guidance • attention to the theatrical qualities of each play and its stage history • informative illustations, including reconstructions of early performances

Product Description: Elections are a fundamental element of democracy, since elected governments reflect voter preferences. At the same time, it is inevitable that policies pursued by any government closely resemble the preferences of some citizens, while alienating others who hold different views...read more

Product Description: This book discusses political representation both as a political idea and a principle of law. Representation was a topic of political debates throughout the 19th and 20th century and the debate has intensified with today’s so-called «crisis of representation»...read more

Product Description: Democracy is in shambles economically and politically. The recent economic meltdown in Europe and the U.S. has substituted democratic deliberation with technocratic decisions. In Athens, Madrid, Lisbon, New York, Pittsburgh or Istanbul, protesters have denounced the incapacity and unwillingness of elected officials to heed to their voices...read more

Product Description: This book develops a new theoretical framework for the study of security issues and applies this to the case of health. Building on the work of the ‘Welsh School’ of Security Studies, and drawing on contributions from the wider critical security literature, the book provides an emancipatory perspective on the health-security nexus – one which simultaneously teases out its underlying political assumptions, assesses its political effects and identifies potential for transformation...read more

Product Description: Recent years have seen constant reports on the failures of governance and the crisis of democracy. By examining cases like Global Financial Crisis, the Arab Revolutions and Wikileaks this volume highlights tensions between governance and democracy during times of crisis and examines the prospects of democratising governance in the 21st Century...read more

Is the party over? Parties are the central institutions of representative democracy, but critics increasingly claim that parties are failing to perform their democratic functions. Political Parties and Democratic Linkage assembles unprecedented cross-national evidence to assess how parties link the individual citizen to the formation of governments and then to government policies. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and other recent cross-national data, the authors examine the workings of this party linkage process across established and new democracies. Political parties still dominate the electoral process in shaping the discourse of campaigns, the selection of candidates, and mobilizing citizens to vote. Equally striking, parties link citizen preferences to the choice of representatives, with strong congruence between voter and party Left/Right positions. These preferences are then translated in the formation of coalition governments and their policies. The authors argue that the critics of parties have overlooked the ability of political parties to adapt to changing conditions in order to perform their crucial linkage functions. As the context of politics and societies have changed, so too have political parties. Political Parties and Democratic Linkage argues that the process of party government is alive and well in most contemporary democracies.

Product Description: Women’s participation in parliaments, high courts, and executive offices worldwide has reached record high numbers, but this global increase in women’s representation masks significant variation among different democratic political systems...read more

Product Description: It is obvious today that the democratic political regime cannot be considered reality without taking into account political parties; it is as obvious as the phenomenon of partidocracy, expressed through the quasi-total domination of parties in politics...read more