Building strong civil societies in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism: Poland, Romania, and the importance of pre-existing social roots
Case study - 6 pages - International relations
Throughout Eastern Europe, embryonic civil societies have demonstrated in various ways but with the same result their crucial role in the advent of democracy in the early 1990s : within a few years, Eastern European communist governments were forced to cede power and undertake democratic...
The Soviet and the Canadian model of political system
Thesis - 2 pages - Political science
Two of the most entrenched political systems throughout history have been socialism and democracy. One of the most notorious examples of socialism existed in the Soviet Union in the twentieth century. The Soviet model of politics did provide us an added perspective when it comes to...
Globalisation and the mass media
Essay - 5 pages - Computer science
The Internet is above all, a decentralised system of interactive communication. And Internet-enthusiasts have seen it as a way to introduce more communication between different communities around the world, as well as an outstanding mean to re-invent and develop democracy. For the first...
A Race to the Finish : A struggle for equal rights
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
The United States, despite its libertarian ideals and emphasis on equality, has more than once turned its back on its own citizens. Slavery, the most bruising, shameful mark in the history of this democracy, divided the American culture even after the Civil War ended and the slaves were...
Africa: a cold war proxy field?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
In most discourses about International Relations, Africa is described as a ‘victim' of external powers - namely its former colonisers, the United States and, as far as the Cold War period is concerned, the Soviet Union. For instance, it is said that African wars in the post-colonial era were...
De Soto, H. (2000) "The mystery of capital - Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else"
Thesis - 3 pages - Services marketing
In 2004, at the meeting of the World Economic Forum, Bill Clinton publicly declared that Hernando De Soto - founder and president of the Institute of Liberty and Democracy (ILD) in Lima and consultant to numerous heads of state - was “probably the world's most important living...
Strategy monograph: Colas Rail, Turnkey produts
Case study - 22 pages - Business strategy
Colas Rail continues to be the French leader in the rail-track laying business. Its leading role in this business is partly due to its unique ability to deliver turnkey products to its clients. The company has been active in all the spheres of railway business, from building up to the maintenance...
Keynesian economics: The transition to the Washington consensus
Thesis - 5 pages - Economy general
Recent political events concerning the international economic downturn have revived the discussion of Keynesian economic theory due to the apparent failure of free market neo-liberalism. On 26 September, 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy remarked that “we must rethink the financial...
The presidency: Where foreign policy and domestic politics collide
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
Political scientists have long sought to discover where the foreign and the domestic spheres of the presidency connect. Presidents, it is assumed, must balance military needs with political needs, whether those political needs entail gaining domestic support for the president's agenda or...
Highway 407: Public to private transition
Thesis - 5 pages - Social, moral & civic education
Alterations to travel flow resulting from urban decentralization is the effect of the increasing size of the city and its level of urbanization, and it reduces traffic volumes between origins and the central destination thereby raising volumes to other destinations. This lowers radial corridor...
How democratic is the British government?
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
In fact, we could set a few provisional requirements to the evaluation of a government as democratic in order to analyze the British particular case. These requirements would be of different natures, and would be related first to the institutional system, then to the society itself. Indeed, the...
Transition of Croatia
Essay - 20 pages - Political science
According to Linz and Stephan, five interacting areas need to be in place before a consolidated democracy can exist in a state. First, there must be a free and lively civil society. A civil society is the arena of the polity where self-organizing groups, movements and individuals can...
Transition Macedonia
Essay - 20 pages - Modern history
Throughout the centuries, the South-eastern corner of Europe has been the scene of many invasions and transcending civilizations. This left the trace of different cultures, religions and empires. One of the most evident cleavages in the region is religious cleavage between the Catholic Church,...
A Comparative Analysis of the Welfare States of Germany, Sweden, and the United States
Essay - 12 pages - Economy general
A welfare-state is a state in which organized power is used to provide social services to a society that cannot provide these things for itself through market-based transactions. Studying the welfare-states of Germany, Sweden and the United States will provide us a valuable perspective in...
How has the political economy of French capitalism evolved in the face of increasing global economic pressures?
Thesis - 10 pages - Economy general
‘The work was standardized, rigid; it has become adaptable, flexible. The institutions were paternalist, authoritarian; they have become permissive, liberal. A feeling of security reigned on the world. It is now the insecurity which is dominant' (Cohen, 2002) This international...
Jordanian politics
Case study - 8 pages - Political science
The IMF and World Bank have both praised the economic and political reforms Jordan launched in the 1990s. The reforms touched “domestic taxation/subsidy polices, trade liberalization polices, monetary/financial sector polices, exchange rate polices, price reform and privatization,”...
Is there a distinct American political culture?
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
We often assess that some behaviours are “American” and some “European”. Doing this, we mean there is a distinct American culture. Does it match for political culture? Political culture could be defined as a set of behaviours and habits towards the political system of one's...
Party politics in Italy
Thesis - 3 pages - Political science
To understand the intricacies of Italian politics, one must understand the politico-ideological groupings or families that structure party-politics in the country. There are currently five political families in Italy: the “Risorgimento”, the Catholic, the Marxist, the Fascist and the...
The third way
Essay - 9 pages - Political science
In 1999, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder issued a joint statement entitled The Third Way, Die neue Mitte. The statement committed itself to a “newly defined role for the active state” and stated that “the essential function of markets must...
Jihad vs. McWorld: The new world disorder
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Jihad vs. McWorld was written by Rutgers University Political Science professor Benjamin R. Barber. The author is widely regarded one of the nation's foremost scholars on democracy. He has written Strong Democracy, in which he explains that economic liberalism is the basis for and...
The relationship between the different types of suffrage and the creation (or construction) of democratic institutions in France from 1789 to 1870
Thesis - 5 pages - Political science
From 1789 to 1870 in France, not less than eight constitutions and twelve regimes followed one after another. France also experienced all types of suffrages, from the most restricted one of the Ancient Regime, to the universal manhood suffrage. This period is undeniably crucial to one who aims to...
The Political Spectrum: A Different Approach
Essay - 9 pages - Other law subjects
The traditional left-right political spectrum we use to place politicians platforms is outdated. We carried this spectrum over from the French, and any citizen would be hard pressed to be able to even accurately define what the spectrum is measuring. We all know that on the right side sit the...
"The national influence on the European integration"
Essay - 7 pages - International relations
EU is regulated by a supranational institutional system, which still takes into account the national sensitiveness. Nevertheless, there is not a traditional strong supranational authority. Indeed, there is neither army nor police, and the decision making process is mainly based on consensus; and...
Towards a democratisation of the Middle-East?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
The Middle East has traditionally been a region where democracy has never really managed to break through. The times of the caliphs had been replaced by a more or less violent period of colonisation. When the time for decolonisation finally came, most of the states -some more or less...
To what extent does the concept of civil society help in the explanation or justification of the process of democratization?
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Renewed interest in civil society emerged in the late 1980s; it coincided with the resurgence of political democracy throughout the world. Indeed, it has been increased with the growing tendency towards democratization in Eastern Europe, and several Latin American countries, where...
The rise and limits of populist parties and movements in Europe
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
Any success of a populist party is often considered as a threat, a rise endangering Democracy. Even if there is a lot of passion over this issue, it is true that there has been a rise of populist parties in Europe, from the 1980s to late 1990s, a rise which has stabilized or reversed...
Nation-state and globalization
Essay - 11 pages - Political science
This essay deals with one of the most controversial questions in today's social science debates: the relationship between the nation-state and globalisation. Globalisation, understood quite loosely here as a series of contemporary and unprecedented developments in the economic, social and...
Democratization versus Rule of Law
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Professor Daniel Saadoun distinguishes three features that are deemed essential in a modern democracy: universal suffrage, the inscription in the preamble of the Constitution of a set of rules that the State cannot modify or erase and the obligation for the State to look after all the...
How have social democratic parties changed over the last 25 years?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
The changes of the last 30, and especially 25 years have produced an unexpected and important indentity crisis for all parties rooted in the tradition of Western European reformistsocialism. In fact, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the world experienced great changes such as new expectations...
Roadblocks, Forces and Reform in Egyptian Politics
Thesis - 6 pages - Political science
The 2005 elections deemed to be promising for Egypt. Hosni Mubarak had himself claimed to come “out of my full conviction of the need to consolidate efforts for more freedom and democracy.” The “reform” agenda had been initiated by the President himself, beginning with...
