Democracy under Threat

Ursula van Beek is the founder Director of the Transformation Research Unit (TRU) at the Department of Political Science at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She has published books and articles on topics such as historical memory and identity, comparative historical analyses, and cultural values and democracy.

“Democracy Under Threat: A Crisis of Legitimacy … is an informative and significant contribution to the current debate on the state of democracy … . This volume brings a great deal of comparative expert and survey data to bear, but also wisely mixes chapters examining cross-national patterns with valuable case studies focusing on within-country trends.” (Robert Mattes, South African Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 26 (3), July 08, 2019)“‘Is Democracy Dying?’ is arguably the most crucial question facing political scientists today, and Democracy under Threat does an impressive job of clarifying what is going on. … Democracy under Threat draws on a wealth of empirical evidence and the insights of a talented team of researchers to demonstrate that the thesis of a global democratic recession is over-simplified.” (Ronald Inglehart, European Political Science, Vol. 18 (1), March, 2019)

• Preface; Ursula van Beek.- Part I: Theoretical aspects and overview.- Chapter 1: Globalization, Populism and Legitimacy in Contemporary Democracy; Dieter Fuchs and Hans-Dieter Klingemann.- Chapter 2: Temporal Models of Political Development; Laurence Whitehead.- Chapter 3: Democratic Quality and Legitimacy in the TRU Countries; Ursula Hoffmann-Lange and Dirk Berg-Schlosser.- Part II: Critical cases.- Chapter 4:  The Return of Nationalist Ethos: The Loss of Liberal Democracy in Poland?; Ursula van Beek.- Chapter 5:  Identity politics: Extreme polarization and loss of capacity to compromise in Turkey; Yilmaz Esmer.- Chapter 6:  Political Radicalism: Responding to the Legitimacy Gap in South Africa; Nicola de Jager and Cindy Steenekamp.- Part III: Regional aspects.- Chapter 7: Democratization in Chile: A Long Run and Comparative Perspective; Laurence Whitehead.- Chapter 8: Democratic Resilience in South Korea and Taiwan; Joseph Wong.- Chapter 9: Globalization and Political Legitimacy in Western Europe; Dieter Fuchs and Edeltraud Roller.- Part IV: Global aspects.- Chapter 10:  Globalisation and Social Protection: An Economic Perspective; Krige Siebrits.- Chapter 11: Global Electronic Screen Culture: Legitimacy at Stake?; Pierre du Toit.- Chapter 12: Lessons for Democracy: Diplomacy to the Rescue?; Christer Jönsson.- Part V: Concluding Chapter.- The Question of Legitimacy in Contemporary Democracies; Ursula van Beek, Dieter Fuchs and Hans-Dieter Klingemann.