MACMILLAN Democracy under Threat: A Crisis of Legitimacy? (Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century)

This book addresses some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is democracy threatened by globalisation? Is there a legitimacy crisis in contemporary democracies?  Is the welfare state in individual countries under pressure from global trends? What are the implications of high-level migration and rising populism for democracy?  Does authoritarianism pose a challenge? The volume builds on a cross-cultural study of democracy conducted by the Transformation Research Unit (TRU) at Stellenbosch University in South Africa for nearly twenty years. Three of the countries studied – South Africa, Turkey and Poland – receive individual attention as their respective democracies appear to be the most vulnerable at present. Germany, Sweden, Chile, South Korea and Taiwan are assessed in their regional contexts. Further insights are gained by examining the impact on democracy of the global screen culture of Television and the Internet, and by pointing out the lessons democracy should learn from diplomacy to fare better in the future. The book will appeal to both students and practitioners of democracy as well as the general reader.           Review “Democracy Under Threat: A Crisis of Legitimacy … is an informative and significant contribution to the current debate on the state of democracy … . This volume brings a great deal of comparative expert and survey data to bear, but also wisely mixes chapters examining cross-national patterns with valuable case studies focusing on within-country trends.” (Robert Mattes, South African Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 26 (3), July 08, 2019) “‘Is Democracy Dying?’ is arguably the most crucial question facing political scientists today, and Democracy under Threat does an impressive job of clarifying what is going on. … Democracy under Threat draws on a wealth of empirical evidence and the insights of a talented team of researchers to demonstrate that the thesis of a global democratic recession is over-simplified.” (Ronald Inglehart, European Political Science, Vol. 18 (1), March, 2019) From the Back Cover This book addresses some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is democracy threatened by globalisation? Is there a legitimacy crisis in contemporary democracies?  Is the welfare state in individual countries under pressure from global trends? What are the implications of high-level migration and rising populism for democracy?  Does authoritarianism pose a challenge? The volume builds on a cross-cultural study of democracy conducted by the Transformation Research Unit (TRU) at Stellenbosch University in South Africa for nearly twenty years. Three of the countries studied – South Africa, Turkey and Poland – receive individual attention as their respective democracies appear to be the most vulnerable at present. Germany, Sweden, Chile, South Korea and Taiwan are assessed in their regional contexts. Further insights are gained by examining the impact on democracy of the global screen culture of Television and the Internet, and by pointing out the lessons democracy should learn from diplomacy to fare better in the future. The book will appeal to both students and practitioners of democracy as well as the general reader.           About the Author Ursula van Beek is the founder Director of the Transformation Research Unit (TRU) at the Department of Political Science at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She has published books and articles on topics such as historical memory and identity, comparative historical analyses, and cultural values and democracy.