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'Democratization' is a concept often used in academic book titles, yet not many of them deal with the initial breakthrough of democratization. This research companion presents an alternative view to the widespread assumption that Western democracies should be the normative reference for the study of democratization elsewhere. Rather, it questions the universal validity of such an assumption by searching the history of European politics and by paying specific attention to the struggles of democratization accomplished outside Western Europe. The authors apply a comparative approach to analyzing debates in the primary sources in a number of countries and languages and situate the results into a broader European context. Focusing on European democratization from different historical and analytical perspectives, they discuss the politics, concepts and histories involved in democratization as a complex of changes that has altered the conditions of political action and debate in the continent for the past two centuries.

Contents: On the politics, concepts and histories of European democratization, Tuija Pulkkinen and José María Rosales. Part I Concepts: Representative democracy: Rosanvallon on the French experience, Frank R. Ankersmit; Direct democracy, ancient and modern, Mogens Herman Hansen; Neither ancient nor modern: Rousseau's theory of democracy, Gabriella Silvestrini; Representative government or republic? Sieyès on good government, Christine Fauré; Democratic politics and the dynamics of passions, Chantal Mouffe; Disobedient state and faithful citizen? Re-locating politics in the age of globalization, Olivia Guaraldo; The gendered 'subjects' of political representation, Tuija Pulkkinen. Part II Practices: Political rhetoric and the role of ridicule, Quentin Skinner; Political times and the rhetoric of democratization, Kari Palonen; Democratization and the instrumentalization of the past, Irène Herrmann; The rhetoric of intellectual manifestos from the First World War to the war against terrorism, Marcus Llanque; City squats and women's struggle: feminist political action as public performance, Anna Schober; Spectres of totality, Simona Forti. Part III Changes: Women's partial; citizenship: cleavages and conflicts concerning women's citizenship in theory and practice, Claudia Wiesner; Gendering political representation? The debate on gender parity in France, Laure Bereni; Political professionalism and representative democracy: common history, irresolvable linkage and inherent tensions, Jens Borchert; Democratization and professionalization: the disappearance of the polling officer in Germany and the introduction of computer democracy, Hubertus Buchstein; The history of parliamentary democracy in Denmark in comparative perspective, Uffe Jakobsen. Part IV Contexts: A long and hard process of democratization: political representation, elections and democracy in contemporary Spain, Gonzalo Capellán de Miguel; Do political parties matter? Direct democracy and electoral struggles in Switzerland in the 19th century, Pierre-Antoine Schorderet; The breakthrough of universal suffrage in Finland, 1905–1906, Jussi Kurunmäki; Nationalism, constitutionalism and democratization: the Basque question in perspective, Jose María Rosales; The Dis-/appearance of the demos, Meike Schmidt-Gleim; Postscript: the past, present and future of democratization, Kari Palonen; Index.