This title provides an overview of the Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan, its history, policies, and structure. It traces the party's origins in opposition movements of the 1960s and 1970s and recounts how it was founded in defiance of martial law in 1986.

A new, fully updated edition of this critically acclaimed title featuring a new chapter covering the 'Arab Spring' and the Egyptian parliamentary and presidential elections. This is an authoritative analysis, in which Alison Pargeter follows the twists and turns of the Muslim Brotherhood as it battled through the years of oppression under authoritarian regimes to finally become a key and legitimate political actor. From Egypt and Syria to Tunisia and Libya, the Brotherhood and its affiliates are now faced with the complex task of transforming themselves from semi-clandestine opposition movements into legitimate political actors and, in some cases, into ruling powers. 'Authoritative, sober, perceptive ... A must read' Jason Burke. 'A tour de force' Alan George, University of Oxford. 'A highly lucid and approachable analysis of the Brotherhood' Richard Phelps, Perspectives on Terrorism. 'Highly recommended' New Statesman.

Moscow in Movement is the first exhaustive study of social movements, protest, and the state-society relationship in Vladimir Putin's Russia. Beginning in 2005 and running through the summer of 2013, the book traces the evolution of the relationship between citizens and their state through a series of in-depth case studies, explaining how Russians mobilized to defend human and civil rights, the environment, and individual and group interests: a process that culminated in the dramatic election protests of 2011–2012 and their aftermath. To understand where this surprising mobilization came from, and what it might mean for Russia's political future, the author looks beyond blanket arguments about the impact of low levels of trust, the weight of the Soviet legacy, or authoritarian repression, and finds an active and boisterous citizenry that nevertheless struggles to gain traction against a ruling elite that would prefer to ignore them. On a broader level, the core argument of this volume is that political elites, by structuring the political arena, exert a decisive influence on the patterns of collective behavior that make up civil society—and the author seeks to test this theory by applying it to observable facts in historical and comparative perspective. Moscow in Movement will be of interest to anyone looking for a bottom-up, citizens' eye view of recent Russian history, and especially to scholars and students of contemporary Russian politics and society, comparative politics, and sociology.

This book takes a closer look at the role and meaning of political opposition for the development of democracy across sub-Saharan Africa. Why is room for political opposition in most cases so severely limited? Under what circumstances has the political opposition been able to establish itself in a legitimate role in African politics? To answer these questions this edited volume focuses on the institutional settings, the nature and dynamics within and between political parties, and the relationship between the citizens and political parties. It is found that regional devolution and federalist structures enable political opposition to organize and gain local power, as a supplement to influence at the central level. Generally, however, opposition parties are lacking in organization and institutionalization, as well as in their ability to find support in civil society and promote the issues that voters find most important. Overall, strong executive powers, unchecked by democratic institutions, in combination with deferential values and fear of conflict, undermine legitimate opposition activity. This book was originally published as a special issue of Democratization.

"To what extent did the American Revolution involve ordinary people? Historians as notable as Carl Becker and Edmund Morgan famously have asked this question or versions of it, but here Roney approaches it afresh by examining local governance and civic associations in Philadelphia, the largest colonial American city. How did popular participation in charity, schools, the militia, and informal banks prepare people to adopt radical ideas and take to the streets protesting against tyranny in the 1760s and 70s? Roney's GOVERNED BY A SPIRIT OF OPPOSITION will both be an important addition to the current literature on public life in early America, and also to the wider literature on urban governance in the British Atlantic in the eighteenth century. She sheds light on the powerful roles played by men acting in the political and constitutional circumstances of early Philadelphia leading up to the Revolution"--

The idea that the opposition has a right to organize and to appeal for votes against the government in elections and in parliament is one of the most important milestones in the development of democratic institutions. Mr. Dahl and nine collaborators analyze the role of the opposition in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. In introductory and concluding chapters, Dahl compares the patterns of opposition in these countries and makes predictions for the future. He carries forward on the basis of this evidence the theory of a pluralistic society he has explored in earlier books such as Who Governs? Mr. Dahl is Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. His collaborators are Samuel Barnes, Hans Daalder, Frederick Engelmann, Alfred Grosser, Otto Kirchheimer, Val R. Lorwin, Allen Potter, Stein Rokkan, and Nils Stjernquist. "This stately volume is distinguished by several unusual features. First, it straightforwardly focuses on a crucial issue of Comparative Politics without being vitiated by the familiar behaviorist semantics and jargon. Secondly, contrary to the ubiquitous trend in this country, flooded by discussion—more journalistic than scientific—on the emergent states, it centers on constitutional democracy in Western Europe, a region which for a decade and more had been badly neglected by the rampant computerizers. Thirdly, for the ten countries under discussion Professor Dahl was fortunate to enlist the services of genuine experts, the majority of whom are specialists in their field. . . . On the whole the volume is one of the major contributions to Comparative Politics that have appeared in this country for some time. The study of the issue as such as well as of the individual reviews is highly rewarding."—Karl Loewenstein, The Annals.