Paths toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) - Softcover

Collier, Ruth Berins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521643821 ISBN 13: 9780521643825

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1999

Synopsis

The question of whether democratization is an elite-led process from above or a popular triumph from below continues to be an area of contention among political scientists. Examining the experiences of countries that have provided the main empirical base for recent theorizing, namely, Western Europe and South America, this book delineates a more complex and varied set of patterns. The volume explores democratization through a comparative analysis that examines the role of labor in relation to elite strategies in both contemporary and historical perspectives.

About this title

About the Author

Ruth Berins Collier is Heller Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Review

"Ruth Collier has written an important contribution to the literatures on democracy and on labor, one that should reorient much discussion and work on democratization...The major contribution of this superb book rests in part on its sheer empirical scope...a lasting contribution of this book should be a heightened awareness of labor's role and an intellectual commitment to use that as a basis for systematically conceptualizing the road to democracy." American Political Science Review

"...ambitious comparative analysis...highly sophisticated theoretical book... this is an imperessive, empirical, methodological, and theoretical addition to the comparative literature on democratization... [it] will prove to be a lasting addition to the field." Sebastián Royo, New Political Science

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0521643821
• ISBN 13: 9780521643825
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 244