Since its inception in 1987, Korean democracy has been an arean of continual drama and baffling contradictions, periodic waves of societal mobilization and disenchantment; initial continuity in political leadership followed by the successive election to the presidency of two former opposition leaders and the arrest of two former heads of state; a constant stream of party renaming and realignments; an extended period of economic success and then a breathtaking economic collapse; and a persistent quest for political reform within a political culture focused not on institutions but on power and personal relationships.

This book sheds light on the dilemmas, tensions, and contradictions arising from democratic consolidation in Korea. The authors explore the turbulent features of Korean democracy in its first decade, assess the progress that has been made, and identify the key social, cultural, and political obstacles to effective and stable democratic governance.

At the Gleneagles summit in July 2005, the heads of state from the G-8 countries - the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom - called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the African Development Bank to cancel 100 percent of their debt claims on the world's poorest countries. The world's richest countries have agreed in principle to forgive roughly $55 billion dollars owed by the world's poorest nations. This article considers the wisdom of the proposal for debt forgiveness, from the standpoint of stimulating economic growth in highly indebted countries. In the 1980s, debt relief under the "Brady Plan" helped to restore investment and growth in a number of middle-income developing countries. However, the debt relief plan for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) launched by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in 1996 has had little impact on either investment or growth in the recipient countries. We will explore the key differences between the countries targeted by these two debt relief schemes and argue that the Gleneagles proposal for debt relief is, at best, likely to have little effect at all. Debt relief is unlikely to help the world's poorest countries because, unlike the middle-income Brady countries, their main economic difficulty is not debt overhang, but an absence of functional economic institutions that provide the foundation for profitable investment and growth. We will show that debt relief may be more valuable for Brady-like middle-income countries than for low-income ones because of how it leverages the private sector.

This book illuminates the central role played by international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in the emergence and development of a comprehensive world polity. The contributors argue that the enormous proliferation of INGOs since 1875including international environmental organizations, human rights groups, bodies formed to regulate technical standards, and economic development organizations, among othersboth reflects and contributes to the spread of global institutions and cultural principles based on models of rationality, individualism, progress, and universalism. The contributors contrast this world-polity perspective to other approaches to understanding globalization, including realist and neo-realist analyses in the field of international relations, and world-system theory and interstate competition theory in sociology.

The volume considers transnational organizing as a historical process of the creation of global rules and norms, changing over time, that have identifiable effects on social organization at the national and local levels. The chapters provide empirical support for this approach, identifying specific mechanisms that translate global cultural assumptions and prescriptions into local social activity, such as the creation of state agencies, the formulation of government policies, and the emergence of social movements. The first part of the book deals with social movement INGOs, including environmental groups, womens rights organizations, the Esperanto movement, and the International Red Cross. The second part treats technical and economic bodies, including the International Organization for Standardization, population policy groups, development organizations, and international professional science associations.

The acceptance of human rights and minority rights, the increasing role of international financial institutions, and globalization have led many observers to question the continued viability of the sovereign state. Here a leading expert challenges this conclusion. Stephen Krasner contends that states have never been as sovereign as some have supposed. Throughout history, rulers have been motivated by a desire to stay in power, not by some abstract adherence to international principles. Organized hypocrisy--the presence of longstanding norms that are frequently violated--has been an enduring attribute of international relations

Political leaders have usually but not always honored international legal sovereignty, the principle that international recognition should be accorded only to juridically independent sovereign states, while treating Westphalian sovereignty, the principle that states have the right to exclude external authority from their own territory, in a much more provisional way. In some instances violations of the principles of sovereignty have been coercive, as in the imposition of minority rights on newly created states after the First World War or the successor states of Yugoslavia after 1990; at other times cooperative, as in the European Human Rights regime or conditionality agreements with the International Monetary Fund.

The author looks at various issues areas to make his argument: minority rights, human rights, sovereign lending, and state creation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Differences in national power and interests, he concludes, not international norms, continue to be the most powerful explanation for the behavior of states.

Extensively revised since the first edition was published in 1989, this analytically balanced and empirically rich volume thoroughly examines the historical, cultural, social, economic, political, and international factors that affect both the prospects for and the nature of political democracy in Latin America.

The book reflects improvements in democratic trends in some countries, but also the erosion of democratic advances in others, with substantial malaise regarding key political actors and institutions and continuing concerns about the impact on democratic consolidation of economic constraints, weak states, judicial inefficacy, and high degrees of inequality. A comprehensive introduction precedes the nine country chapters, which follow a similar format to facilitate comparisons.

In this book noted political sociologist Larry Diamond sets forth a distinctive theoretical perspective on democratic evolution and consolidation in the late twentieth century. Rejecting theories that posit preconditions for democracy, and thus dismiss its prospects in poor countries, Diamond argues instead for a "developmental" theory of democracy. This, he explains, is one which views democracy everywhere as a work in progress that emerges piecemeal, at different rates, in different ways and forms, in different countries. Diamond begins by assessing the "third wave" of global democratization that began in 1974.

With a wealth of quantitative data and case illustrations, he shows that the third wave has come to an end, leaving a growing gap between the electoral form and the liberal substance of democracy. This underscores the hollow, fragile state of many democracies and the imperative of concolidation. He then defines the concept of democratic consolidation and identifies the conditions that foster it. These include strong political institutions, appropriate institutional designs, decentralization of power, a vibrant civil society, and improved economic and political performance.

If new and troubled democracies are to be consolidated, Diamond argues, they must become more deeply democratic, more liberal, accountable, and responsive to their citizens. Drawing on extensive public opinion research in developing and postcommunist states, he demonstrates the importance of freedom, transparency, and the rule of law for generating the broad legitimacy that is the essence of democratic consolidation. The book concludes with a hopeful view of the prospects for a fourth wave of global democratization.

Democratization in Africa examines the state of progress of democracy in Africa at the end of the 1990s. The past decade's "third wave" of democratization, the contributors argue, has been characterized by retreats as well as advances. In some cases, newly established democratic orders have devolved into pseudo-democracies while, in other cases, superficial changes have been used as a cosmetic screen for continuation of often brutal regimes. The volume makes clear, however, that political liberalization is making significant headway.

The first section of the book ("Assessing Africa's Third Wave") offers several broad analytical surveys of democratic change and electoral processes in the 48 sub-Saharan African states. Frequent abuses are noted, but several contributors find room for guarded optimism. The second section ("South Africa: An African Success?") focuses on the dramatic developments in South Africa, the most advanced democracy on the continent but one faced with enormous challenges in the aftermath of apartheid. Essays in this section examine such issues as the role of nongovernmental organizations in the new political order, the ongoing and linked problems of racial and economic division, the demographics of public opinion on democracy, and the viability of the country's new constitution. The third section of the book ("African Ambiguities") considers more closely several other African states-Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, the Gambia, and Nigeria-all at different crossroads in their progress toward democracy.

From the Introduction:

"For the past three decades, there has been no lack of reasons to be pessimistic about Africa's future. But a more balanced reading is called for . . . There is significantly greater political freedom and more space for civil society in Africa today than a decade ago. Even as some states have disintegrated, others are moving forward to reconstruction. There is also a new ideological and intellectual climate. Unlike during the false start of the first liberation that came with decolonization, Africa today evinces a new political sobriety that is hardened (and even jaundiced) by experience, but not without hope."

Beginning in 1993, left or communist successor parties have achieved electoral success in several postcommunist countries as critics of neo-liberal reform. They have focused their electoral appeals on the social costs of reform, promising greater public welfare and moderation of economic policies. The present volume examines the impact of these parties on social policy in Poland, Hungary, Russia, Eastern Germany, and the Czech Republic, asking: Do left parties commit greater resources to social policy, or are they constrained by finances, international pressures, or their own conversion to market ideology? Do they seek to promote a social-democratic model of the welfare state, or look to models that assign the state a more limited role? Are they acting opportunistically in appealing to popular grievances or effectively building a consensus around a policy agenda? Answers to these questions are used to address a broader theoretical concern: What does being "left" mean in the postcommunist context?

During transitional moments, new leaders must design political institutions. Some of these designs succeed in establishing lasting rules of the game. Others do not. This paper analyzes those factors which either facilitate or undermine institutional persistence during transitions, focusing particularly on the role that uncertainty and path dependency play in these processes. The empirical section of the paper examines three cases of institutional design in the Soviet/Russian transition--the creation of the Russian presidency, the emergence of electoral law for Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, and the evolution of institutional design regarding the formation of Russia's upper house, the Federal Council. This comparison shows why the first two cases of institutional design created lasting institutions--even though these new rules did not reflect precisely the interests of their creators--while the third case of institutional design did not.

The book is intended for a wide audience and has been written in a style which is readily accessible to people from many different disciplines.

Cappelen Akademisk Forlag (a leading Norwegian Publisher) are pleased to announce the publication of a new and highly challenging book on the rise of New Public Financial Management (NPFM) reforms. Edited by Olov Olson, James Guthrie and Christopher Humphrey, the book is the outcome of a unique two year collaborative project involving 24 senior accounting academics from eleven different countries, including Australia, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States of America. The book is intended for a wide audience and has been written in a style which is readily accessible to people from many different disciplines. As John Meyer, Professor of Sociology at Stanford University, observes in his foreword to the book: "This book is about the rise and international impact of a social movement trying to reform public management around the world along rational and rationalistic lines. The roots of the movement are in professional accounting, especially in the private sector, and has gained considerable force in the last two decades, and has had widespread effects on the ways public organizations are perceived, on policies governing them, and sometimes on organizational practices.