Stephen E. Hanson – författare

What if the state as we know it didn’t exist? Our air would be poisonous, our votes uncounted, and our markets dysfunctional. Yet across the world, in countries as diverse as Hungary, Israel, the U.K., and the U.S., attacks on the modern state and its workforce are intensifying. They are morphing into power grabs by self-aggrandizing politicians who attempt to seize control of the state for themselves and their cronies. What replaces the modern state once it is fatally undermined is not the free market and the flowering of personal liberty. Instead, the death of government agencies organized under the rule of law inevitably leads to the only realistic alternative: the rule of men.In The Assault on the State, political scientists Stephen Hanson and Jeffrey Kopstein offer an impassioned plea to defend modern government against those who seek to destroy it. They dissect the attack on the machinery of government from its origins in post-Soviet Russia to the core powers of Western democracy. The dangers of state erosion imperil every aspect of our lives. Hanson and Kopstein outline a strategy that can reverse this destructive trend before humanity is plunged back into the pathological personalistic politics of premodern times.Also available as an audiobook.

Twelve in-depth case studies of the EU and countries across the globe, written by the leading country specialists and combining insights of cutting-edge institutional analysis and deep study of national histories, explore how the concepts of interests, identities and institutions shape the politics of nations and regions. The country studies trace the global and historical contexts of political development and examine the diverse pathways that countries have taken in their quest to adapt to the competitive pressures of twenty-first-century globalization. These country studies constitute the overarching framework of the text, addressing the larger question, 'why are countries ruled and governed so differently?' Free of heavy-handed jargon, Comparative Politics inspires thought-provoking debate among introductory students and specialists alike, and encourages students to engage in real comparative analysis. In this new edition, all twelve country studies have been rewritten, and the first two theory chapters have been updated to reflect the latest research in the field.

This volume presents a shared effort to apply a general historical-institutionalist approach to the problem of assessing institutional change in the wake of communism's collapse in Europe. It brings together a number of leading senior and junior scholars with outstanding reputations as specialists in postcommunism and comparative politics to address central theoretical and empirical issues involved in the study of postcommunism. The authors address such questions as how historical 'legacies' of the communist regime be defined, how their impact can be measured in methodologically rigorous ways, and how the effects of temporal and spatial context can be taken into account in empirical research on the region. Taken as a whole, the volume makes an important contribution to the growing literature by utilizing the comparative historical method to study key problems of world politics.

This book examines the causal impact of ideology through a comparative-historical analysis of three cases of 'post-imperial democracy': the early Third Republic in France (1870-86); the Weimar Republic in Germany (1918-34); and post-Soviet Russia (1992-2008). Hanson argues that political ideologies are typically necessary for the mobilization of enduring, independent national party organizations in uncertain democracies. By presenting an explicit and desirable picture of the political future, successful ideologues induce individuals to embrace a long-run strategy of cooperation with other converts. When enough new converts cooperate in this way, it enables sustained collective action to defend and extend party power. Successful party ideologies thus have the character of self-fulfilling prophecies: by portraying the future polity as one organized to serve the interests of those loyal to specific ideological principles, they help to bring political organizations centered on these principles into being.

This volume presents a shared effort to apply a general historical-institutionalist approach to the problem of assessing institutional change in the wake of communism's collapse in Europe. It brings together a number of leading senior and junior scholars with outstanding reputations as specialists in postcommunism and comparative politics to address central theoretical and empirical issues involved in the study of postcommunism. The authors address such questions as how historical 'legacies' of the communist regime be defined, how their impact can be measured in methodologically rigorous ways, and how the effects of temporal and spatial context can be taken into account in empirical research on the region. Taken as a whole, the volume makes an important contribution to the growing literature by utilizing the comparative historical method to study key problems of world politics.

This book examines the causal impact of ideology through a comparative-historical analysis of three cases of 'post-imperial democracy': the early Third Republic in France (1870-86); the Weimar Republic in Germany (1918-34); and post-Soviet Russia (1992-2008). Hanson argues that political ideologies are typically necessary for the mobilization of enduring, independent national party organizations in uncertain democracies. By presenting an explicit and desirable picture of the political future, successful ideologues induce individuals to embrace a long-run strategy of cooperation with other converts. When enough new converts cooperate in this way, it enables sustained collective action to defend and extend party power. Successful party ideologies thus have the character of self-fulfilling prophecies: by portraying the future polity as one organized to serve the interests of those loyal to specific ideological principles, they help to bring political organizations centered on these principles into being.

Why did the wave of democracy that swept the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe starting more than a decade ago develop in ways unexpected by observers who relied on existing theories of democracy? In Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy, four distinguished scholars conduct the first major assessment of democratization theory in light of the experience of postcommunist states. Richard Anderson, Steven Fish, Stephen Hanson, and Philip Roeder not only apply theory to practice, but using a wealth of empirical evidence, draw together the elements of existing theory into new syntheses. The authors each highlight a development in postcommunist societies that reveals an anomaly or lacuna in existing theory. They explain why authoritarian leaders abandon authoritarianism, why democratization sometimes reverses course, how subjects become citizens by beginning to take sides in politics, how rulers become politicians by beginning to seek popular support, and not least, how democracy becomes consolidated. Rather than converging on a single approach, each author shows how either a rationalist, institutionalist, discursive, or Weberian approach sheds light on this transformation.They conclude that the experience of postcommunist democracy demands a rethinking of existing theory. To that end, they offer rich new insights to scholars, advanced students, policymakers, and anyone interested in postcommunist states or in comparative democratization.

Stephen Hanson traces the influence of the Marxist conception of time in Soviet politics from Lenin to Gorbachev. He argues that the history of Marxism and Leninism reveals an unsuccessful revolutionary effort to reorder the human relationship with time and that this reorganization had a direct impact on the design of the central political, socioeconomic and cultural institutions of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991. According to Hanson, westerners tend to envision time as both rational and inexorable. In a system in which ""time is money"", the clock dominates workers. Marx, however, believed that communist workers would be freed of the artificial distinction between leisure time and work time. As a result, they would be able to surpass capitalist production levels and ultimately control time itself. Hanson reveals the distinctive imprint of this philosophy on the formation and development of Soviet institutions, arguing that the breakdown of Gorbachev's ""perestroika"" and the resulting collapse of the Soviet Union demonstrate the failure of the idea.