-PDF Download- Tainted Democracy EBOOK

Tainted Democracy

Author: Zsuzsanna Szelényi

Publisher: Hurst Publishers

Published: 2022-11-21

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 1787389898

Hungary, once the poster-child of liberal democracy, is fast becoming an autocracy under Viktor Orbán. After winning an absolute majority in 2010, Orbán launched a series of ‘reforms’, fundamentally undermining the country’s twenty-year, post-Cold War liberal consensus. For supporters and foes alike, the rise and rise of Hungary’s prime minister is a vivid example of how democracy can be subverted from within. Zsuzsanna Szelényi, a leading member of Orbán’s Fidesz in its early years, has witnessed first-hand the party’s shift from liberalism to populist nationalism. Offering an insider’s account of Fidesz’s evolution since its creation, she explains how the party rose to leadership of the country under Orbán and made sweeping legal, political and economic changes to solidify its grip on power–from reining in the public media to slashing the number of parliamentary seats. She answers a key question: why has Orbán been so successful, winning widespread support within Hungary and wielding considerable influence in European politics? And how can Hungary’s opposition party Together, which she co-founded in 2014, work to turn the country around? Underpinned by Szelényi’s own experiences at the heart of Hungarian politics, Tainted Democracy offers accessible, nuanced insights into the global rise of populist autocracy–and how it can be challenged.

Orbán

Author: Paul Lendvai

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 019091159X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A no-holds-barred biography of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has become a pivotal figure in European politics since 2010, this is the first English- language study of the erstwhile anti-communist rebel turned populist autocrat. Through a masterly and cynical manipulation of ethnic nationalism, generating fear of migrants and deep-rooted corruption, Orbán has exploited successive electoral victories to build a closely knit and super-rich oligarchy. He holds unfettered power in Hungary and is regarded as the single most powerful leader within the European Union. Orbán's ambitions are far-reaching. Hailed by governments and far-right politicians as a symbol of a new anti-Brussels nationalism, his ruthless crackdown on refugees, his open break with normative values and his undisguised admiration for Presidents Putin and Trump mean he poses a formidable challenge to Angela Merkel and the survival of liberal democracy in a divided Europe. Drawing on access to exclusive documents and numerous interviews, celebrated veteran journalist Paul Lendvai paints a compelling portrait of the most successful and, arguably, most dangerous politician in Hungarian history.

Hunger and Fury

Author: Jasmin Mujanović

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 0190877391

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Less than two decades after the Yugoslav Wars ended, the edifice of parliamentary government in the Western Balkans is crumbling. This collapse sets into sharp relief the unreformed authoritarian tendencies of the region's entrenched elites, many of whom have held power since the early 1990s, and the hollowness of the West's "democratization" agenda. There is a widely held assumption that institutional collapse will precipitate a new bout of ethnic conflict, but Mujanovic argues instead that the Balkans are on the cusp of a historic socio-political transformation. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, with a unique focus on local activist accounts, he argues that a period of genuine democratic transition is finally dawning, led by grassroots social movements, from Zagreb to Skopje. Rather than pursuing ethnic strife, these new Balkan revolutionaries are confronting the "ethnic entrepreneurs" cemented in power by the West in its efforts to stabilise the region since the mid-1990s. This compellingly argued book harnesses the explanatory power of the striking graffiti scrawled on the walls of the ransacked Bosnian presidency during violent anti-government protests in 2014: 'if you sow hunger, you will reap fury'.

Tainted Democracy

Author: Illinois Campaign Finance Task Force

Publisher:

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 58

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Tainted Perceptions

Author: Thomas Laszlo Dorogi

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Tainted Perceptions asserts that beginning with the pre-Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, American popular and institutional images of China focused on the reformist nature of the government, but following the military crackdown in June 1989, this optimism dwindled and resulted in the creation of an ambivalent cross-cultural atmosphere toward the Chinese for the next half decade. When Chinese leaders decided to undertake military exercises in the Taiwan Strait in mid-1995, America's perception of the PRC swung even further in a distinctly negative direction; an event that marked the outset of a three year period during which Chinese military modernization and economic expansion were viewed as a direct threat to the international political hegemony of the United States.

Democracy and the Politics of the Extraordinary

Author: Andreas Kalyvas

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-06-30

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1139472429

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Although the modern age is often described as the age of democratic revolutions, the subject of popular founding has not captured the imagination of contemporary political thought. Most of the time, democratic theory and political science treat as the object of their inquiry normal politics, institutionalized power, and consolidated democracies. This study shows why it is important for democratic theory to rethink the question of democracy's beginnings. Is there a founding unique to democracies? Can a democracy be democratically established? What are the implications of expanding democratic politics in light of the question of whether and how to address democracy's beginnings? Kalyvas addresses these questions and scrutinizes the possibility of democratic beginnings in terms of the category of the extraordinary, as he reconstructs it from the writings of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Hannah Arendt and their views on the creation of new political, symbolic, and constitutional orders.

The Tainted Source

Author: John Laughland

Publisher:

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 9780316882965

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This text provides a broad and deep analysis of the underlying assumptions governing modern European politics, and of the way European union works in reality. It argues that the plans to integrate Western Europe around a single currency are dangerous for democracy and the rule of law. It also contends that Western policy towards Eastern Europe and Russia is similarly misguided, and that the current drift will only encourage the hegemony of Russia over the West. John Laughland shows how the European idea was warmly embraced by Fascists and Nazis during World War II - especially in France, Germany and Belgium. He reiterates the essential link between free trade on the one hand, and democratic politics, nationhood and the rule of law on the other.

Poland's Constitutional Breakdown

Author: Wojciech Sadurski

Publisher: Oxford Comparative Constitutio

Published: 2019-05-16

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0198840500

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Since 2015, Poland's populist Law and Justice Party (PiS) has been dismantling the major checks and balances of the Polish state and subordinating the courts, the civil service, and the media to the will of the executive. Political rights have been radically restricted, and the Party has captured the entire state apparatus. The speed and depth of these antidemocratic movements took many observers by surprise: until now, Poland was widely regarded as an example of a successful transitional democracy. Poland's anti-constitutional breakdown poses three questions that this book sets out to answer: What, exactly, has happened since 2015? Why did it happen? And what are the prospects for a return to liberal democracy? These answers are formulated against a backdrop of current worldwide trends towards populism, authoritarianism, and what is sometimes called 'illiberal democracy'. As this book argues, the Polish variant of 'illiberal democracy' is an oxymoron. By undermining the separation of powers, the PiS concentrates all power in its own hands, rendering any democratic accountability illusory. There is, however, no inevitability in these anti-democratic trends: this book considers a number of possible remedies and sources of hope, including intervention by the European Union.