Institutions and the Fate of Democracy: Germany and Poland in the Twentieth Century

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University of Pittsburgh Pre, 2005 - 328 pages
As democracy has swept the globe, the question of why some democracies succeed while others fail has remained a pressing concern. In this theoretically innovative, richly historical study, Michael Bernhard looks at the process by which new democracies choose their political institutions, showing how these fundamental choices shape democracy's survival.



Offering a new analytical framework that maps the process by which basic political institu-tions emerge, Bernhard investigates four paradigmatic episodes of democracy in two countries: Germany during the Weimar period and after World War II, and Poland between the world wars and after the fall of communism.



Students of democracy will appreciate the broad applicability of Bernhard's findings, while area specialists will welcome the book's accessible and detailed historical accounts.

 

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Table des matières

Institutional Choice and Democratic Survival in New Democracies
v
Weimar Germany DEFECTIVE INSTITUTIONAL CHOICE
12
Interwar Poland INSTITUTIONAL CHOICE BY IMPOSITION
64
The Federal Republic of Germany LEARNING FROM HISTORY
100
Postcommunist Poland INSTITUTIONAL CHOICE AS AN EXTENDED PROCESS
169
Conclusion
233
Notes
251
References
271
Index
291
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Page xiv - means" for the attainment of the actor's own rationally pursued and calculated ends; (2) value-rational (wertrational), that is, determined by a conscious belief in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other form of behavior, independently of its prospects of success...

À propos de l'auteur (2005)

Michael Bernhard is associate professor of political science at the Pennsylvania State University.

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