Converging Media, Diverging Politics

Converging Media, Diverging Politics
Author: Mike Gasher
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2005
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780739113066

What purpose does the news media serve in contemporary North American society? In this collection of essays, experts from both the United States and Canada investigate this question, exploring the effects of media concentration in democratic systems. Specifically, the scholars collected here consider, from a range of vantage points, how corporate and technological convergence in the news industry in the United States and Canada impacts journalism's expressed role as a medium of democratic communication. More generally, and by necessity, Converging Media, Diverging Politics speaks to larger questions about the role that the production and circulation of news and information does, can, and should serve. The editors have gathered an impressive array of critical essays, featuring interesting and well-documented case studies that will prove useful to both students and researchers of communications and media studies.

The New European Union and Its Global Strategy

The New European Union and Its Global Strategy
Author: Valentin Naumescu
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2019-10-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1527541827

In a relatively short period of time, the European Project has faced an incredibly diverse spectrum of crises and challenges. From the Eurozone crisis to the sovereign debt crisis, and from the migration crisis to Brexit, the European Union has found itself confronted with unprecedented internal and external threats and pressures. The Global Strategy of 2016 and the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in the field of defence of 2017 are just two of the new strategies and policies to which it has turned. Whether the Franco-German engine will succeed in surpassing this critical moment and trigger a deep reform of the European Union remains to be seen. Raising its level of strategic ambition, the European Union projects itself as a global actor in the system of international relations, reshaping its ties with the United States, China, and Russia. However, European security, along with the topics of European politics and society, remain subjects of intense debate. This volume offers a number of possible answers to various questions regarding the future of the European Union and its relationships with the rest of the world. Based on a variety of perspectives from international relations, European studies, political science, economics, and cultural studies, the contributions here address the “conundrum” of the EU’s transformations.

Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities

Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities
Author: Holger Mölder
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2023-11-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3031434404

In light of many crises in the last two decades, including democratic recession, climate change, economic crises, and massive waves of migration affecting perceptions of security around the world, this book examines the impact of cultural change in political communities on the global political and security environment. Through various case studies of political communities around the world, the book analyzes contemporary responses to cultural change, often culminating in the rise of political populism and extremism. The book is divided into two parts and presents a foreword by Larry Diamond and an afterword by Eric Shiraev. The first part focuses on the micro-level of cultural change in political communities and discusses conflict mechanisms and the role of political participation in producing changes. The second part features studies on extremism and populism, analyzing their impact on cultural change in Europe. The book is intended for scholars and students in a variety of disciplines, including international relations, security studies, cultural studies, and related fields.

Transitions in Post-Soviet Eurasia

Transitions in Post-Soviet Eurasia
Author: Archana Upadhyay
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2021-08-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000423239

This book discusses the ideological and historical relevance of the term ‘Eurasia’ as a concept in the global geopolitical and ethno-cultural discourse. It focuses on the contested meanings attached to the idea and traces its historical evolution and interpretations. The volume examines the contours and characteristics of power politics in the Eurasian landscape by exploring the dynamics of the contending and competing interests that have come to occupy the region, particularly in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It further examines the multiple narratives that define the socio-political realities of the region and also the policies of the state actors involved, by reflecting upon the multifaceted dimensions of the Eurasian issues. These include nation building strategies, identity, ethnic conflicts, security, democratization, globalization, international migration, climate change and energy extraction. The geopolitical and civilizational aspects of Eurasianism, in which Russia occupies a pivotal geo-political place creates both opportunities and anxieties for other stakeholders in the region. The book also holistically analyses the developmental dimensions of the post-Soviet space and ‘Eurasianism’ as a concept and political practice in domestic, regional and global affairs. The book also analyses the developmental dimensions of the post-Soviet space and ‘Eurasianism’ as a concept and political practice in domestic, regional and global affairs.

Authoritarian Diffusion and Cooperation

Authoritarian Diffusion and Cooperation
Author: André Bank
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2020-04-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0429838751

To shed light on the global reassertion of authoritarianism in recent years, this volume analyses transnational diffusion and international cooperation among non-democratic regimes. How and with what effect do authoritarian regimes learn from each other? For what purpose and how successfully do they cooperate? The volume highlights that present-day autocrats pursue mainly pragmatic interests, rather than ideological missions. Consequently, the connections among authoritarian regimes have primarily defensive purposes, especially insulation against democracy promotion by the West. As a result, the authors do not foresee a major recession of democracy, as occurred with the rise of fascism during the interwar years. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of Democratization.

Foreign Policy Change in Europe Since 1991

Foreign Policy Change in Europe Since 1991
Author: Jeroen K. Joly
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2021-08-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030682188

In the past three decades, the world has witnessed many rapid and invasive changes, and seems to be changing countries have adapted their foreign policies to these changes. Building on a clear typology of foreign policy change and a consistent theoretical framework, this book offers a comparative analysis of foreign policy change in Europe throughout the post-Cold War period. Along the lines of our analytical framework, country experts discuss how and why the further ever more rapidly in ways that seemed only imaginable in movies. This book investigates how European foreign policies of eleven European countries have changed over the past thirty years. This book hereby advances our understanding of the phenomenon of foreign policy change and identifies the most important drivers and inhibitors of change.

Central and Eastern Europe in the EU

Central and Eastern Europe in the EU
Author: Christian Schweiger
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 135186369X

Since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, the EU has been in almost permanent crisis mode. It is witnessing new dimensions of internal differentiation among its member states, and the migration crisis has shown that the Central and Eastern European countries (CEEs) in particular are slowly but certainly transforming themselves from predominantly passive policy-takers towards becoming more active players in the process of shaping the EU’s governance agenda. This edited volume offers the first comprehensive and critical insight into how the CEEs position themselves in the EU’s changing internal and external environment, their stance towards the European integration process under current crisis conditions, and what political and economic strategies they prioritize.

Understanding Energy Security in Central and Eastern Europe

Understanding Energy Security in Central and Eastern Europe
Author: Wojciech Ostrowski
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2018-04-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317311043

The purpose of this book is to move beyond the approach which views energy as a purely geopolitical tool of the Russian state and assumes a 'one size fits all' approach to energy security in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It argues that in order to fully understand Russian involvement in the regional energy complex, the CEE-Russian energy relationship should be analysed in the context of the political and economic transitions that Russia and the CEE states underwent. The chapters on individual countries in the book demonstrate that, although Russia has and will continue to play a substantial role in the CEE energy sector, the scope of its possible influence has been overstated.

Declining Democracy in East-Central Europe

Declining Democracy in East-Central Europe
Author: Attila Ágh
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2019
Genre: Democracy
ISBN: 1788974735

The dramatic decline of democracy in East-Central Europe has attracted great interest world-wide. Going beyond the narrow spectrum of the extensive literature on this topic, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of ECE region – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – from systemic change in 1989 to 2019 to explain the reasons of the collapse of ECE democratic systems in the 2010s.