Democracy in Europe has been a recent phenomenon. Only in the wake of World War II were democratic frameworks secured, and, even then, it was decades before democracy truly blanketed the continent. Neither given nor granted, democracy requires conflict, often violent confrontations, and challenges to the established political order. In Europe, Geoff Eley convincingly shows, democracy did not evolve organically out of a natural consensus, the achievement of prosperity, or the negative cement of the Cold War. Rather, it was painstakingly crafted, continually expanded, and doggedly defended by varying constellations of socialist, feminist, Communist, and other radical movements that originally blossomed in the later nineteenth century. Parties of the Left championed democracy in the revolutionary crisis after World War I, salvaged it against the threat of fascism, and renewed its growth after 1945. They organized civil societies rooted in egalitarian ideals which came to form the very fiber of Europe's current democratic traditions. The trajectories of European democracy and the history of the European Left are thus inextricably bound together. Geoff Eley has given us the first truly comprehensive history of the European Left--its successes and failures; its high watermarks and its low tides; its accomplishments, insufficiencies, and excesses; and, most importantly, its formative, lasting influence on the European political landscape. At a time when the Left's influence and legitimacy are frequently called into question, Forging Democracy passionately upholds its vital contribution.

The essential history of the extraordinary year in which American democracy and American slavery emerged hand in hand in colonial Virginia. Along the banks of the James River, Virginia, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619, two events occurred within a few weeks of each other that would profoundly shape the course of history. In the newly built church at Jamestown, the General Assembly -- the first gathering of a representative governing body in America -- came together. A few weeks later, a battered privateer entered the Chesapeake Bay carrying the first African slaves to land on mainland English America. In 1619, historian James Horn sheds new light on the year that gave birth to the great paradox of our nation: slavery in the midst of freedom. This portentous year marked both the origin of the most important political development in American history, the rise of democracy, and the emergence of what would in time become one of the nation's greatest challenges: the corrosive legacy of racial inequality that has afflicted America since its beginning.

This book, first published in 2000, analyzes the role of economically marginalized people in recent transitions to democratic rule.

The important political motivations behind why women finally won the right to vote In the 1880s, women were barred from voting in all national-level elections, but by 1920 they were going to the polls in nearly thirty countries. What caused this massive change? Why did male politicians agree to extend voting rights to women? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was not because of progressive ideas about women or suffragists’ pluck. In most countries, elected politicians fiercely resisted enfranchising women, preferring to extend such rights only when it seemed electorally prudent and in fact necessary to do so. Through a careful examination of the tumultuous path to women’s political inclusion in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, Forging the Franchise demonstrates that the formation of a broad movement across social divides, and strategic alliances with political parties in competitive electoral conditions, provided the leverage that ultimately transformed women into voters. As Dawn Teele shows, in competitive environments, politicians had incentives to seek out new sources of electoral influence. A broad-based suffrage movement could reinforce those incentives by providing information about women’s preferences, and an infrastructure with which to mobilize future female voters. At the same time that politicians wanted to enfranchise women who were likely to support their party, suffragists also wanted to enfranchise women whose political preferences were similar to theirs. In contexts where political rifts were too deep, suffragists who were in favor of the vote in principle mobilized against their own political emancipation. Exploring tensions between elected leaders and suffragists and the uncertainty surrounding women as an electoral group, Forging the Franchise sheds new light on the strategic reasons behind women’s enfranchisement.

The last two decades have been marked by momentous changes in forms of governance throughout the post-Soviet region. Ukraine's political system, like those of other formerly socialist states of Eastern Europe, has often been characterized as being "in transition," moving from a Soviet system to one more closely aligned with Western models. Anna Fournier challenges this view, investigating what is increasingly recognized as a critical aspect of contemporary global rights discourse: the active involvement of young people living in societies undergoing radical change. Fournier delineates a generation simultaneously embracing various ideological stances in an attempt to make sense of social conditions marked by the disjuncture between democratic ideals and the everyday realities of growing economic inequality. Based on extensive fieldwork in public and private schools in the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv, Forging Rights in a New Democracy explores high-school-aged students' understanding of rights and justice, and the ways they interpret and appropriate discourses of citizenship and civic values in the educational setting and beyond. Fournier's rich ethnographic account assesses the impact on the making of citizens of both formal and informal pedagogical practices, in schools and on the streets. Chronicling her subjects' encounters with state representatives and "violent entrepreneurs" as well as their involvement in peaceful protests alongside political activists, Fournier demonstrates the extent to which young people both reproduce and challenge the liberal discourse of rights in ways that illuminate the everyday paradoxes of market democracy. By tracking students' active participation in larger contests about the nature of liberty and entitlement in the context of redefined rights, her book provides insight into emergent configurations of citizenship in the New Europe.

This text gives a history of the European Left's successes and failures, its high and lows, its accomplishments, insufficiencies, and excesses, and its formative, lasting influence on the political landscape of the West.

This edition covers a wide range of conceptual, historical, institutional, and policy issues. Topics addressed include the question of civil society, and the problems confronting democratic governments and movements in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the post-communist countries.