With democracy on the rise worldwide, questions about "transition" are rapidly being replaced by questions about "consolidation." How can leaders provide for a stable democracy once a nation has made its initial commitment to the rule of law and to popularly edledted government? In The Politics of Democratic Consolidation, a distinguished group of internationally recognized scholars focus on four nations of Southern Europe—Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece—which have successfully consolidated their democratic regimes. Contributors: P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, Richard Gunther, Hans-Jürgen Puhle, Edward Malefakis, Juan J. Linz, Alfred Stepan, Felipe Agüero, Geoffrey Pridham, Sidney Tarrow, Leonardo Morlino, José R. Montero, Gianfranco Pasquino, and Philippe C. Schmitter.

A distinguished group of scholars examine recent transitions to democracy and the prospects for democratic stability in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Portugal, Spain and Uruguay. They also assess the role of elites in the longer-established democratic regimes in Columbia, Costa Rica, Italy, Mexico and Venezuela. The authors conclude that in independent states with long records of political instability and authoritarian rule, democratic consolidation requires the achievement of elite 'consensual unity' - that is, agreement among all politically important elites on the worth of existing democratic institutions and respect for democratic rules-of-the-game, coupled with increased 'structural integration' among those elites. Two processes by which consensual unity can be established are explored - elite settlement, the negotiating of compromises on basic disagreements, and elite convergence, a more subtle series of tactical decisions by rival elites which have cumulative effect, over perhaps a generation.

Southern European Parliaments in Democracy analyses the development of the parliaments of Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey since the mid-1980s. This book considers the challenges of the transition to democracy and outlines how the Parliaments of Southern Europe have adapted to the pressures of a democratic polity. Its focus is an assessment of the main changes that have taken place since the periods of transition to democracy right up to the present day. Chapters are country specific and consider a variety of indicators, from legislation and scrutiny to the social background of MPs. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Legislative Studies.

European integration has had a profound impact on the politics of Southern Europe, a region that was initially at the margin of the decision-making processes of the European Union, but is gradually becoming more and more influential. This volume offers a comparative overview of modern politics in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, focusing in particular on the process of integration of these countries into the European Union and on the impact of European public policy. The author analyzes the development of Southern European political systems, from the establishment of democratic governments to the most recent political events, looking at each individual system and finding patterns, similarities of development, as well as differences between them. Among the topics examined are the building of institutions, the parties and party systems, foreign policies, the political culture of each country, and the recent efforts towards the creation of a space of security and peace in the Mediterranean.

In this thought-provoking book, José M. Magone investigates the growing political, economic and social divisions between the core countries of the European Union and the southern European periphery. He examines the major hindrances that are preventing the four main southern European countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) from keeping up with the increasing pace of European integration, and the effects that this is having on democratic governance.

Why did precarious and collapsed democracies in Europe develop into highly stable democracies? Gerard Alexander offers a rational choice theory of democratic consolidation in a survey of the breakdowns of and transitions to democratic institutions. Through an analysis of developments in Spain, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, Alexander explores how key political sectors established the long-term commitment to democracy that distinguishes consolidated democracies. Alexander makes a highly accessible rationalist argument about the conditions under which such commitments emerge, arguing that powerful sectors abandon options for overthrowing democratic rules only when they predict low risks in democracy. The author's argument parallels established claims about the predictability essential to the development of modern capitalism. The Sources of Democratic Consolidation outlines Alexander's claim that a political precondition, rather than an economic or social precondition, exists for consolidated democracies. Drawing on interviews and archival research, the author links his argument to evidence from the five largest countries in Western Europe from the 1870s to the 1980s and also discusses the implications for the prospects for democratic consolidation in other regions. Political pacts, power-sharing, and institutional designs, he says, may help stabilize uncertain democracies, but they cannot create consolidation.

In the European tradition, parliaments are central political institutions that play a crucial role in the development of democratic societies. No other institution regularly offers a public arena for open deliberation and dissent, for discussing opposite points of view and for reaching compromise solutions between political adversaries. However, in spite of the growing visibility of modern parliaments, the study of parliamentary language use, interaction practices and discourse strategies has long been under-researched. Based on extensive parliamentary data, this book integrates a rich variety of innovative analytical approaches that explore the far-reaching impacts of parliamentary practices and linguistic strategies on current political action and interaction. Individual chapters problematise and re-evaluate the discourse-shaped identities and roles of Members of Parliament, the structure and functions of parliamentary discourse genres, interpersonal behaviour and intertextual meaning co-construction in post-Communist parliaments. They offer broad cross-cultural perspectives on parliamentary discursive psychology and argumentation. The book provides essential reading for scholars and students of language and linguistics, rhetoric, political and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in language and politics.