Coursework.Info - Inspiration in an Instant

On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:

Politics and Society in Europe Is consociational democracy democratic? Today, democracy is both a pervasive presence and a valued symbol in European politics1. Theorists of the concept generally agree on the fundamental principles of democracy but have tended to differ radically in their conception of popular rule and democratic practices2. Consequently, it was somewhat inevitable that democracy as an ideal emerged in different forms across the diverse societies prevalent in Western Europe. Arend Lipjphart's seminal work on 'consociational democracies'3 contributed to democratic theory - concerned primarily with political stability of democratic regimes in plural societies4. The democratic viability of Lipjphart's theory has recently been called into question however5. What then is 'democracy'? Establishing the benchmarks of the concept at the outset will allow us to evaluate the extent to which 'consociational democracy' can be seen as 'democratic'. An assessment of the key themes of Lipjphart's theory - that of 'grand coalitions', 'segmental...

To see the full version of this document, and 144,904 others