T - Peter Lang

T
he «crisis of democracy» is as old as
democracy itself . From the first democ-
racy in Athens up until western democracy
in the twenty-first century, criticism and
complaints about the deficiencies of democracy
have recurred . Pessimistic accounts
typically focus on the destructive potential
of these crises .
This collection of essays takes an alternative
approach and draws attention to the
creativity inherent in these «crises of democracy»
– the potential for renewal and
adaptation .
In the volume, historians, philosophers
and political scientists from the Netherlands,
Great Britain, Sweden and Austria tackle the
three key questions prompted by this perspective:
what moments of creativity can be
discerned during crises of democracy in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries; how
does democracy adapt during moments of
crisis; and how does the notion of a democratic
crisis affect political reality and vice
versa?
Contents: Evert van der Zweerde: Mix
the Balance! Democracy as a Paradoxical
Process • Paul Lucardie: From Crisis to Democracy?
An Exercise in Political Imagination
• Marco Verschoor: The Problem of the
Legitimacy of the People . The Rawlsian Strategy
of Avoidance • Daniel Hausknost: The
«Epistemic Legitimacy» of Liberal Democracy
as a Structural Constraint for Radical
Politics • Wim de Jong: Political Education
and the Recurring Crisis of Democracy in
the Netherlands (1945-2010) • Tim Houwen:
Populism as a Recurrent Phenomenon of
Representative Democracy • Machiel
Karskens : Crisis of Democracy as a Repudi-
ation of Politics • Carla Hoetink/Karin van
Leeuwen: Dilemmas of Democracy: Early
Postwar Debates on European Integration
Joris Gijsenbergh • Saskia Hollander •
Tim Houwen • Wim de Jong (eds .)
Creative Crises of Democracy
Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2012 .
444 pp ., num . fig . and tables
Philosophy & Politics . Vol . 23
General Editors: Gabriel Fragnière and Hendrik Opdebeeck
pb . ISBN 978-90-5201-797-6
CHF 68 .– / € D 51 .90 / € A 53 .40 / € 48 .50 / £ 44 .– / US-$ 72 .95
in the Netherlands • Anna Friberg: Towards
Total Democracy? The Concept of Democracy
within the Swedish Social Democratic
Party, 1921-1939 • Joris Gijsenbergh: Crisis of
Democracy or Creative Reform? Dutch Debates
on the Repression of Parliamentary
Representatives and Political Parties, 1933-
1940 • Stefan Couperus: Fixing Democracy?
Political Representation and the Crisis of Democracy
in Interwar Europe and the Netherlands
• Martin Conway: The Making of
Democratic Stability . The Case of Belgium
after 1944 • Jacco Pekelder: From Militancy
to Democracy? The Radical Left in West Germany
in the 1970s • Wim van Meurs: Political
Marches as Markers of Democratic Crisis
• Peter Bal: Public Spheres in a Globalizing
World . How the Global and the Political Shape
and Reshape Public Opinions • Stijn van
Kessel : Two of a Kind or Kind of Incompati-
ble? Populist Parties in the Dutch and Polish
Party Systems • Saskia Hollander/Monique
Leyenaar: Towards a Direct Democratic Era?
Assessing the Usage of Direct Democratic
Institutions in Europe • David Hugh-Jones:
Why Elected Politicians Implement Direct
Democracy .
Joris giJsenBergh , saskia hollander ,
tim houwen and wim de Jong are all involved
with the interdisciplinary research
project ‘Repertoires of Democracy: The Transfer
of Democratic Practices’, which is based
at Radboud University Nijmegen . Gijsenbergh
is currently writing a doctoral thesis on democracy
and repression of extremism in interwar
Dutch society; Hollander is writing a
thesis on referendums and European integration;
Houwen is writing a thesis on populism
and representative democracy; and de
Jong is writing his thesis on citizenship education
and democracy in the post-war Netherlands
.
Marja Jalava
Histoire · Geschichte · History
The University in the Making
of the Welfare State
The 1970s Degree Reform in Finland
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles,
New York, Oxford, Wien, 2012 . 210 pp .
I
pb . ISBN 978-3-631-58461-3
CHF 56 .– / € D 42 .80 / € A 44 .– / € 40 .– /
£ 36 .– / US-$ 59 .95
n just a couple of decades, Finland evolved
from one of Europe’s lowest educated
countries to the top performer of the international
PISA ranking . Behind this «success
story», there was a conscious strategy to use
educational policies for creating a more equal
society . Tracing the development of Finnish
higher education system after WWII, this
book depicts the role of educational expansion
in the making of the welfare state . It
focuses on the 1970s degree reform and the
challenges brought by the 1973 Oil Crisis, resulting
in the rise of New Public Management
. Though meticulously planned, the reform
was a struggle between various actors
with conflicting strategies and goals; between
educational optimism and scarce resources,
academic values and instrumentalism, social
justice and elitism .
marJa Jalava is Academy Research Fellow
in the Department of Philosophy, History,
Culture and Art Studies at the University
of Helsinki . She has published widely on
modern and contemporary Finnish and Nordic
history, intellectual history, and the history
of historiography .
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