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Scientists --- Science --- Natural science --- Science of science --- Sciences --- Natural sciences

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Is democracy a hot-house plant? Is it difficult to transplant it into new soil? The fall of so many dictatorships in the last few years-first in Southern Europe, then in Latin America, now in Eastern Europe-opens new, more optimistic perspectives on democratic development. The crises of dictatorships and the search for a new political order offer fertile ground for an examination of how best to effect democratic transitions.By focusing on the objective conditions that make democracy probable, sociological and historical theories of democracy often lose sight of what is possible. Here Giuseppe Di Palma instead explores those conciliatory political undertakings that political actors on all sides now engage in to make the improbable possible. His emphasis is on political crafting: in regard to constitutional choices, to alliances and convergences between contestants, to trade-offs, to the pacing of the transitions. Di Palma also examines the reasons-stalemate, the high cost of repression, a loss of goals, international constraints and inducements-that may motivate incumbents and nondemocratic political actors to accept democracy, even in those cases, as in Central America and Eastern Europe, where acceptance would seem least likely.An original and imaginative work that, in the light of recent transitions, challenges our assumptions about fledgling democracies and breaks new theoretical ground, To Craft Democracies will appeal to anyone interested in the way we forge our political communities today.

Democracy --- Political Science --- SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General.

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Philosophy --- Ethics --- Political science

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This volume explores, from a variety of perspectives, the political theory of the man who is arguably the greatest English political thinker. It is the first substantial collection of new, critical essays on Thomas Hobbes by leading scholars in over a decade.Hobbes’s writings stirred debate in his own lifetime, for two centuries thereafter, and continue to do so in ours. They emerged in a period of intense political turmoil—a time of civil war and regicide, of puritanical rule and royal restoration. “They were motivated,” Dietz argues, “by concrete political problems and a practical concern, namely, to secure political order, absolute sovereignty, and civil peace.” The contributors emphasize and answer a series of expressly political questions that, to date, have not been fully addressed in the Hobbes literature. They contend that Hobbes’s writings are not mere static artifacts of a particular historical milieu, but rather rich sources of a variety of interpretations and criticisms that spur discussion and debate in their turn.

Hobbes, Thomas --- Political science & theory

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* Written without unnecessary jargon* 2 extensive indexes of Names and Topics* Usefully illustrated with 150 black & white photographs and line drawings to explain key advances`Contain[s] a vast amount of reliable information over a very wide field. It is certainly a work of which I shall myself make frequent use ... it deserves to find a place ... in every reference library.' - Times Higher Education

Technology --- Technology. --- Applied science --- Arts, Useful --- Science, Applied --- Useful arts --- Science --- Industrial arts --- Material culture --- History.