Democracy Beyond Elections

Gergana Dimova is Associate Lecturer in Global Politics at the University of Winchester, UK. She previously was a researcher at Harvard University, USA, and Cambridge University, UK. She is the chair of the UK Political Science Association Anti-Politics Group and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society.

“The book is important in light of numerous recent examples of challenges for free speech and the media community in Europe and beyond. … It will be of interest nevertheless to follow up whether media allegations have transformative power for electoral outcomes – what makes them count in voters’ choices – timing, scale, accumulation, the accuser or the accountability forum they enfold on or else.” (Mila Moshelova, East European Politics, Vol. 38 (4), 2022)“This is an important and timely contribution to the revitalisation of democracy studies … . This book can be read by both academic and non-academic audiences, as it situates government accountability in an era when the media performs such a significant role. … it can also be a valuable tool for populists.” (Georges Kordas, LSE Review of Books, blogs.lse.ac.uk, May 20, 2020)“The book is an insightful and very well-researched contribution to understanding democratic promises and challenges on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dimova’s nuanced perspective on democracy as finding itself between crisis and transformation provides both a warning … and reason for optimism that the supply of accountability forums is not just an outcome but an opportunity. The book can thus claim to develop a separate research field that forges an integrated middle ground between models of crisis and transformation of democracy.” (Rumena Filipova, Democratization, December 17, 2019)

• Chapter 1. Government Accountability in the Media Age: How to Measure, Explain and Assess It?.- Part I. Explaining Government Accountability: A Model of Supply and Demand.- Chapter 2. The Media Age and Government Accountability: An Ambiguous Relationship.- Chapter 3. Supply of Accountability and the Accountability Turn.- Chapter 4 The Demand for Accountability and Public Fragmentation.- Part II. Evaluating Government Accountability: Methodological Considerations and Empirical Results.- Chapter 5. Accountability and Democracy: An Assessment.- Chapter 6. De-Parliamentarisation of Government Accountability in Germany: Crisis or Transformation of Democracy.- Chapter 7. The Presidentialisation of Government Accountability in Russia: Crisis or Transformation of Democracy?.- Chapter 8. Judicialisation of Government Accountability in Bulgaria: Crisis or Transformation of Democracy?.- Part III. Democracy Analyzed through the Lens of Accountability: Crisis or Transformation?.- Chapter 9. Democracy through the Prism of Accountability: Comparison with Models of the Crisis and Transformation of Democracy.- Chapter 10. Contemporary Models of the Crisis of Democracy: Critical Overview through a Demand and Supply Framework.- Chapter 11. Models of the Transformation of Democracy: Critical Overview through a Demand and Supply Framework.