This article analyses the state of democracy in 2020. The world is still more democratic than it was in the 1970s and 1980s, but a trend of autocratization is ongoing and affecting 25 countries in 2020, home to 34% of the world’s population. At the same time, the number of democratizing...

Scientific, political and bureaucratic elites use epistemic practices like “big data analysis” and “web scraping” to create representations of the citizenry and to legitimize policymaking. I develop the concept of “demos scraping” for these practices of gaining information about...

Do political innovations matter? Representative democracy at a crossroads / Agnès Alexandre-Collier, Alexandra Goujon and Guillaume Gourgues -- A new political elite in France : the end of professionalization? / Dominique Andolfatto -- Does party democracy impact American politics? The rise of...

This paper argues that current levels of violence and populism in post-colonial spaces such as South Africa are a consequence of a socio-history of violent dispossession, exploitation and impoverishment and is perpetuated by the continuation of the socio-economic and political conditions rooted...

This paper addresses two twin questions - what accounts for the deep political and eco-nomic crisis in South Africa? The answer this paper develops is that both desired outcomes - a thriving capitalist economy and a solid democracy - were based on Western models and assumptions about the South...

This article presents evidence of a global trend of autocratization. The most visible feature of democracy – elections – remains strong and is even improving in some places. Autocratization mainly affects non-electoral aspects of democracy such as media freedom, freedom of expression, and...

"Analyzes the deepening of and structural changes in Korea's financial system since the early 1980s and presents the empirical results of the effects of financial development on economic growth, stability, and the distribution of income. Finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, financial...

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Prelude -- Note -- Acknowledgments -- 1 The theatrics of the 'state': An introduction -- From a 'missing' state to the 'theatrical' state -- Theorizing the theater -- Ethnography of the 'theater of...