Democracy in Transition

Author: (Japanese) Takashi Ito
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: As a proven set of guidelines for handling political and social life, democracy is gaining increasingly widespread acceptance, while the challenges it faces are becoming more pronounced. On one hand, countries undergoing democratic transitions are grappling with a multitude of pressing issues. On the other hand, many nation-states are rejecting universal democratic models on the grounds of their unique characteristics. This book compiles detailed analyses by a group of renowned political scholars, including Juan Linz, Takashi Ito, and Robert Putnam, on the aforementioned issues. It also explores the relationships between democracy and religion, culture, media, civil society, and globalization, and examines the possibility of extending democracy from the national level to the level of international organizations. Since the late 1980s, many have hailed the Western democratic model as the ultimate model of human civilization. However, this excessive optimism was soon met with a heavy blow from reality. Regardless of the progress of democratic systems in the 1980s and 1990s, the old and new problems faced by this model continued to surface: within newly established democracies that adopted the Western model, democracy not only failed to resolve the conflicts between the former regime and the people but also exacerbated various socio-economic issues. On the other hand, the traditional view of the universality of the democratic model was strongly challenged by theories emphasizing the specificity of national development. Democracy not only failed to become a standardized global model but also faced unprecedented challenges. This book addresses the numerous issues faced by democratic systems during their development and transformation. The authors are all well-known scholars in the field of comparative politics, with solid analytical skills in political studies and a diverse academic background that bridges Eastern and Western perspectives. This enables them toly identify the various challenges faced by democratic systems and gain deep insights into the fundamental patterns of the evolution of the Western democratic model.