Emerging from a conference titled "Democracy and Violence" held at the Stanford Alpine Meadows Lodge, California, in September 1997, this volume contains 16 contributions written by professors and scholars in the social sciences. A dominant theme is that democracies have a proclivity to stimulate political violence. Topics addressed include the violence associated with elections, both generally and in countries such as Israel, Italy, Eastern Europe, and the US. Attention is paid to ethnic strife, riots, and terrorism in democracies, as well as general issues such as the meaning of a persistent history of violence and Thomas Jefferson's idea that democratic states need periodic violence to sustain themselves. Distributed by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.

An incisive analysis of the connections between democracy and violence by acknowledged experts in the field. The connection between the two activities has often been largely ignored because of a widespread reluctance among democrats to consider the possibility that democratic forms perhaps encourage violence. This challenging volume opens up the debate.

"Women have made significant inroads into politics in recent years, but in many parts of the world, their increased engagement has spurred physical attacks, intimidation, and harassment intended to deter their participation. This book provides the first comprehensive account of this phenomenon, exploring how women came to give these experiences a name - violence against women in politics - and lobbied for its increased recognition by citizens, states, and international organizations. Tracing how this concept emerged inductively on the global stage, the volume draws on research in multiple disciplines to resolve lingering ambiguities regarding its contours. It argues that this phenomenon is not simply a gendered extension of existing definitions of political violence privileging physical aggressions against political rivals. Rather, violence against women in politics is a distinct phenomenon involving a broad range of harms to attack and undermine women as political actors. Drawing on a wide range of country examples, the book illustrates what this violence looks like in practice, as well as catalogues emerging solutions around the world. Issuing a call to action, it considers how to document this phenomenon more effectively, as well as understand the political and social implications of allowing violence against women in politics to continue unabated. Highlighting the threats it poses to democracy, human rights, and gender equality, the volume concludes that tackling violence against women in politics requires ongoing dialogue and collaboration to ensure women's equal rights to participate - freely and safely - in political life around the globe"--

Assaults on democracy are increasingly coming from the actions of duly elected governments, rather than coups. Backsliding examines the processes through which elected rulers weaken checks on executive power, curtail political and civil liberties, and undermine the integrity of the electoral system. Drawing on detailed case studies, including the United States and countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa, the book focuses on three, inter-related causal mechanisms: the pernicious effects of polarization; realignments of party systems that enable elected autocrats to gain legislative power; and the incremental nature of derogations, which divides oppositions and keeps them off balance. A concluding chapter looks at the international context of backsliding and the role of new technologies in these processes. An online appendix provides detailed accounts of backsliding in 16 countries, which can be found at www.cambridge.org/backsliding.

In noting that political violence was the product of choices made by political actors rather than the result of irresistible forces ...Schumann issues a pertinent warning while making a first-rate contribution to the scholarly literature on the Weimar Republic. Central European History A well-documented and skillfully argued book. German Studies Review In his exceptional regional study of the Prussian province of Saxony, Schumann offers a richly detailed analysis of political violence in the Weimar Republic...This is a wordy but methodical and ultimately convincing work of scholarship. Choice Schumann ... calls into question some assumptions, provides interesting nuances, and helps to refine our understanding of the nature of political violence in Weimar Germany. Journal of Modern History ... provides a well-documented, solid narrative and challenging analysis of Weimar's political violence... American Historical Review This] definitive work, rich in source material and analysis, dispels stereotypes of political violence in the Weimar Republic. Historische Zeitschrift The Prussian province of Saxony-where the Communist uprising of March 1921 took place and two Combat Leagues (Wehrverb nde) were founded (the right-wing Stahlhelm and the Social Democratic Reichsbanner) - is widely recognized as a politically important region in this period of German history. Using a case study of this socially diverse province, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of political violence in Weimar Germany with particular emphasis on the political culture from which it emerged. It refutes both the claim that the Bolshevik revolution was the prime cause of violence, and the argument that the First World War's all-encompassing "brutalization" doomed post-1918 German political life from the very beginning. The study thus contributes to a view of the Weimar Republic as a state in severe crisis but with alternatives to the Nazi takeover. Dirk Schumann is Professor of History at Georg-August University, G ttingen. He is the co-editor of Life After Death (2003), Violence and Society after the First World War (first issue of Journal of Modern European History 2003]), Between Mass Death and Individual Loss (2007). Most recently, he has edited Raising Citizens in the "Century of the Child" The United States and German Central Europe in Comparative Perspective (2010).

Democratic Insecurities focuses on the ethics of military and humanitarian intervention in Haiti during and after Haiti's 1991 coup. In this remarkable ethnography of violence, Erica Caple James explores the traumas of Haitian victims whose experiences were denied by U.S. officials and recognized only selectively by other humanitarian providers. Using vivid first-person accounts from women survivors, James raises important new questions about humanitarian aid, structural violence, and political insecurity. She discusses the politics of postconflict assistance to Haiti and the challenges of promoting democracy, human rights, and justice in societies that experience chronic insecurity. Similarly, she finds that efforts to promote political development and psychosocial rehabilitation may fail because of competition, strife, and corruption among the individuals and institutions that implement such initiatives.

Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.

Offers the first comprehensive analysis of the wave of revolutionary terrorism in affluent countries.

This book explains the lifecycle of terrorist organizations from an innovative theoretical perspective, combining economics with social psychology. It provides a new approach to understanding human behaviour in organized society, and then uses this to analyze the forces shaping the lifecycle of violent political movements. Economic and rational-choice theorists assume that human beings are motivated only by self-utility, yet terrorism is ultimately an altruistic act in the eyes of its participants. This book highlights the importance of the desire to belong to a group as a motivating factor, and argues that all of us face an eternal trade-off between selfishness and community concern. This hypothesis is explored through four key groups; the IRA in Northern Ireland, Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Naxalites in India. Through this, the book analyzes the birth, growth, transformation and demise of violent political movements, and ends with an analysis of the conditions which determine the outcome of the war against terrorism. Understanding Terrorism and Political Violence will be essential reading for advanced students of terrorism studies and political science, and of great interest to students of social psychology and sociology.

This book presents empirical research on the nature and structure of political violence. While most studies of social movements focus on single-nation studies, Donatella della Porta uses a comparative research design to analyze movements in two countries--Italy and Germany--from the 1960s to the 1990s. Through extensive use of official documents and in-depth interviews, della Porta is able to explain the actors' construction of external political reality, and to build a theory on political violence that synthesizes the various interactions among political actors.