Sonderangebot Stämpflis juristische Lehrbücher: Bis Ende November profitieren Sie von 20% Rabatt auf folgende Lehr- und Praxisbücher.
Fokusthemen
Publikationen
Services
Autorinnen/Autoren
Verlag
Shop
LEXIA
Zeitschriften
SachbuchLOKISemaphor

The Regime Question

Foundations of Democratic Governance in Europe and the United States

Inhalt

Ongoing struggles over core principles of democratic governance

The regime question—often boiled down to “democracy or autocracy?”—has been central to democratic politics from the start. This has entailed not only fights over the extent of the franchise but also, crucially, ongoing struggles over core principles of democracy, the “rules of the game.” In this timely study, Amel Ahmed examines the origins and development of the regime question in Western democracies and considers the implications for regime contention today. She argues that battles over the regime question were so foundational and so enduring that they constitute a dimension of politics that polarized political opponents across the regime divide.

Ahmed investigates four historical cases in the study of democratic development: the United Kingdom between the Reform Act of 1832 and World War II (1832–1939), Imperial and Weimar–era Germany (1876–1933), the French Third Republic (1870–1939), and the United States before World War II (1789–1939). Focusing on legislative politics as an essential site of democratic governance and key to understanding long-term democratic endurance, she shows that when the regime question became salient, it hindered the ability to form viable legislative coalitions along the left-right policy spectrum. This failure opened the door to executive encroachment, destabilizing the regime. Ahmed shows that the resurgence of the regime question today is not, as often assumed, a break with prior trajectories of political development but a new instantiation of battles fought in previous eras.

Bibliografische Angaben

Juli 2025, ca. 320 Seiten, Princeton Studies in American Politics, Englisch
University Presses
978-0-691-26943-6

Schlagworte

Weitere Titel der Reihe: Princeton Studies in American Politics

Alle anzeigen

Weitere Titel zum Thema