Polity : : Demystifying Democracy in Latin America and Beyond / / Joe Foweraker.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Lynne Rienner Press Complete eBook-Package 2018
• VerfasserIn: Foweraker, Joe,
• Place / Publishing House: Boulder : : Lynne Rienner Publishers, , [2022]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (224 p.)

Amidst the many lamentations about the problems of democracy, Joe Foweraker turns his attention to specific questions: Is democracy incompatible with stark social inequalities? Why are so many democratic governments deemed unaccountable and beset by populist pressures? Perhaps most fundamentally, why does democratic theory have no answers to these questions? Foweraker argues that finding answers requires a root-and-branch revision of our thinking about democracy—a revision that asks us to stop talking about "democracy" and start talking about "polity." Drawing on the political realities of Latin America, he describes polity as a system encompassing the distinct but conjoined domains of oligarchy and democracy; and he offers a conceptual framework that identifies the key components and logic of polity. His innovative analysis affords a better understanding not only of democracy in Latin America, but also of democratic regimes around the world.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Polity and Latin America -- 2 Polity as a Political System -- 3 The Making of the Modern Polity -- 4 State, Regime, and Civil Society -- 5 Polity, Inequality, and the Republic -- 6 Populism and Polity -- 7 Constitutionalism and Polity -- 8 Polity, Rights, and Protest -- 9 Demystifying Democracy -- References -- Index -- About the Book