San Antonio College Library

This is an account of how Chile rebuilt its democracy after 17 years of military rule - with the former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, watching, and waiting, from the sidelines. Spooner discusses the major players, events, and institutions in Chile's recent political history, delving into such topics as the environmental situation, the economy, and the election of Michelle Bachelet. Throughout, she examines Pinochet's continuing influence on public life...

"Peacebuilding is an interactive process that involves collaboration between peacebuilders and the victorious elites of a postwar society. While one of the most prominent assumptions of the peacebuilding literature asserts that the interests of domestic elites and peacebuilders coincide, this book contends that they rarely align. Costly Democracy makes the case that the preferences of domestic elites are greatly shaped by the costs they incur in adopting...

"This book demonstrates that people's basic values and beliefs are changing, in ways that affect their political, sexual, economic, and religious behavior. These changes are roughly predictable: to a large extent, they can be explained by the revised version of modernization theory presented here. Drawing on a massive body of evidence from societies containing 85 percent of the world's population, the authors demonstrate that modernization is a process...

Kurlantzick proposes that the spate of retreating democracies, one after another over the past two decades, reflects a new and disturbing trend: democracy in worldwide decline.

After a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations in Egypt in 2010, President Hosni Mubarak resigned and handed over power to the military. So how did it happen? How did unarmed civilians end decades of despotic rule in a matter of days? What sparked the historic political uprising? CBC journalism looks at the surprising new power of the Arab street and internet organization strategies. (21 minutes.).

"Providing a comprehensive critique of the Constitution adopted in 1990, this book identifies it as an important factor in the exclusion of various ethnic and minority groups. It examines the causes for the lack of democratic consolidation in Nepal and outlines alternative institutions that can give voice to the various sociocultural groups in the country and strengthen democracy. Dr. Lawoti makes a case for setting up a new Constituent Assembly and...

"This volume offers an ambitious and comprehensive overview of the unprecedented advances as well as the setbacks in the post-1978 wave of democratization. It seeks to explain the sea change from a region dominated by authoritarian regimes to one in which openly authoritarian regimes are the rare exception, and it analyzes why some countries have achieved striking gains in democratization while others have experienced erosions. The book presents general...

Since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, conflict in the Middle East has been increasingly wrought with internal struggles, driven by ethnic, inter-communal, and religious differences. Islamic radicalism has grown as an internal threat, and foreign intervention is now a potential catalyst. Since 1990, the Middle East has twice witnessed the introduction of foreign armies, first to halt Iraqi expansionism, and more recently, to bring about...

Focusing on Europe this book explores the complex relationships between ethnicity and democratisation. Case studies cover ethnic experiences in a range of countries including France, Spain, Russia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Sanchez tells the story of how Panama, though one of the smallest Latin American countries, played the largest symbolic role in America's ascent to world power status, particularly during the U. S. almost century-long occupation of the Canal Zone from 1903 until December 31, 1999. A narrow isthmus linking North America and South America, Panama's strategic geographic location and size has attracted the attention of strong nation-states for 500 years....