Those who analyze political institutions often employ broad labels. They refer to democracy or authoritarianism; presidential or parliamentary governments; or to systems of plurality or proportional representation. In this paper, I refrain from addressing politics at this level and adopt an approach that is far more micro-in perspective. The approach I take can be referred to as " neo-classical...

This paper questions the conventional wisdom concerning the sequencing of political and economic reforms in developing countries. We exploit the specific situation of frontier-zones as well as the considerable regional variations in culture and economic development in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in order to estimate the impact of market development an...

The leading theories of democracy and stakeholder inclusion from traditional democratic theory demonstrate major limitations in conceptualising these interactions in terms of inclusion or equity, key requisites for the achievement of sustainability. Leading interpretations of management theory are also limited, either constrained by narrow concepts of economic development and shareholder accoun...

Recent theoretical debates in human geography have been characterised by a preference for ontological styles of argument. The ontologisation of theory is associated with distinctive claims about rethinking ‘the political’. This paper draws on an avowedly ‘non-representationalist’ philosophical perspective to develop an interpretation of ontology-talk as a genre that provides reasons for certain...

In this paper, I will challenge the widespread idea that democratic elections can be the main instrument for creating political legitimacy and discuss what other types and forms of political practices that may (and may not) create political legitimacy. The argument I criticize is that people will accept a political authority because they have been given the right to take part in “free and fair ...

alph's Pretty Good Grocery, for those like me who miss popular culture allusions, is a fictional shop in the imaginary Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, a place invented by the humorist Garrison Keilor. Its slogan is 'If you can't get it at Ralph's, you can probably get along without it'. For political scientist John Mueller, this slogan sums up capitalism and democracy. They may not supply every...

Recent trends suggest that young people in Britain are increasingly rejecting electoral politics. However, evidence suggests that British youth are not apolitical, but are becoming ever more sceptical of the ability of electoral politics to make a meaningful contribution to their lives. Why young people are adopting new political behaviour and values, however, is still a point of contention. So...

In recent years, political donations have increased, and their rationality has been questioned accordingly. This paper examines the donation controversy from perspective of relationship between democracy capitalism, summarizes structural contradictions whether should be allowed to arise democracy. To resolve this contradiction, capitalism must completely separated. As a result, contributions ba...

Although previous research on the correlates of political repression has found a negative linear relationship between democracy and repression, we maintain that the relationship is more complex. We focus instead on the role of threats as a key precipitant to political repression and contend that scholars should attend to both non-linearities in analyses of political repression as well as Fein’s...