Books published by ECPR Press

This book brings together academics as well as practitioners to give a forward-looking, holistic view of the realities of EU citizen participation across the spectrum of participatory opportunities.

This book presents the main findings of a comparative qualitative survey conducted in France, Germany, Italy, and Poland.

This study assesses Kelsenian democratic theory.

Philippe Van Parijs is one of the world's leading political philosophers. In this book, he argues that the purpose of democracy should be to promote justice - we need not just democracy (in the sense of unqualified democracy) but a just democracy. Machiavelli and Rawls must be brought together. In a series of provocative and timely essays, he explores what creating such a just democratic political system would involve in order to tackle such issues as intergenerational justice, multiculturalism and linguistic diversity. He illustrates his arguments with examples drawn from the European Union and his native Belgium.

In this edition the original text is augmented by a new Preface that describes the ways in which the book's findings retain their relevance for contemporary scholarship, and by an Epilogue in which the main analyses reported in the book are brought up to date.

The authors examine patterns of electoral persistence and change in Western Europe between 1885 and 1985.

The volume presents valuable comparative data and methodological insights, including statistical analyses of voting data and critical accounts of major approaches to the representation of voting and party competition.

This book explains how European governments handled these challenges and, step-by-step, agreed on significant reforms which led to the signing of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2007.

Citizens, Elections, Parties remains the most complete guide to Rokkan's work up to 1970, and it is for this that Rokkan is most widely known today.

Starting from the 1980s, this book provides the first, complete history of the idea of deliberative democracy, analysing its relationship with the earlier idea, and practices, of participatory democracy in the 1960s and 1970s.

Offers a systematic analysis of the EU positions of far right parties in Europe.

A quantitative analysis and three in-depth case studies on the European citizens' initiative, the European grouping of territorial cooperation and the Liberalisation of Community Postal Services show how capacities, incentives and preferences of consultative committees and legislative decision-makers need to be configured to allow for the influence of the CoR and the EESC. 'Do actors without vote have influence in the European Union? Diana Panke, Christoph Hnnige, and Julia Gollub's book is the definitive study of the Committee of Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee, the European Union's two standing consultative bodies. They must be heard, though not necessarily listened to, on most EU legislation. The study shows convincingly that CoR and EECS influence is possible, though conditional on whether they can bring expertise to the table. Guided by an elegant sender-receiver model, the authors develop a series of hypotheses that specify these conditions, and test these with surveys, interviews, and case studies. This is a first-rate scholarly book, rich with factual nuggets and clear analysis. It will be of interest to EU policy makers as well as students of the European Union. This book also sends a cautiously hopeful message to those who seek to deepen democracy in the globe's most important experiment in governance above the state.'Liesbet Hooghe, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill'Consultative committees are too often dismissed as being mere talking shops when in fact they can play an important role in the agenda-setting and decision-making process. This volume presents in-depth research into the working methods and deliberative processes of the two main consultative committees in the European Union. In doing so, the authors provide valuable accounts of both the opportunities and the limitations of these bodies. Most importantly, this book explores the conditions under which consultative committees may make a difference to EU decision-making and proposes a number of specific recommendations based on this analysis. Required reading not only for students and scholars of European integration, but also for practitioners involved in the work of policy consultation in the EU and beyond.'Thomas Christiansen, Maastricht University'The primary focus of this welcome and important contribution to our understanding of EU consultative committees is the influence of two under-researched organisations with 'voice, but no vote': the European Economic and Social Committee, and the Committee of the Regions. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from a well-framed and well-executed research project, the authors show, among other things, how the provision of information is more important than legitimacy in conditioning these committees' influence on policy. This book's clearly articulated evidence, findings and implications make it recommended reading for anyone interested in the role that committees play in our political systems, and essential for students of EU governance.' Michelle Cini, University of Bristol

This unique volume presents for the first time work examining negative campaigning in the US, Europe and beyond.

The first comprehensive account of the booming phenomenon of deliberative mini-publics, this book offers a systematic review of their variety, discusses their weaknesses, and recommends ways to make them a viable component of democracy.

This book offers a consistent framework to assess participation from the perspective of democratic legitimacy, conceptualising it as functional representation.

This volume faces the problems of comparability and equivalence head on and indicates practical ways they can be tackled.

On 18 March 2003, the United States attacked Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. On 16 January 1991, the US had attacked Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.

The second edition of this widely acclaimed book takes as its main theme the question of how states and societies pursue freedom from threat in an environment in which competitive relations are inescapable across the political, economic, military, societal and environmental landscapes. Throughout, attention is placed on the interplay of threats and vulnerabilities, the policy consequences of overemphasising one or the other, and the existence of contradictions within and between ideas about security. Barry Buzan argues that the concept of security is a versatile, penetrating and useful way to approach the study of international relations. Security provides an analytical framework which stands between the extremes of power and peace, incorporates most of their insights and adds more of its own. People, States and Fear is essential reading for all students and researchers of international politics and security studies. The ECPR Classics edition includes a new introduction from the author placing this classic text within a current context.