Klaus von Beyme Book order

This book, written by a prominent German political scientist and specialist for political theory and comparative government, analyses right-wing populism as a topical theme of postmodern party systems in Europe and the United States. 

This book of a renowned political scientist and specialist in political theory fundamentally challenges the new fashion of post-democracy by offering an outlook on ‘neo-democracy’. The political periods are similar to epochs in modern art, where ‘neo’ succeeded Post-impressionism and Post-expressionism. This book reviews the topical debate on postdemocracy and scenarios of decline in democratic theory without the alternative of dictatorship. It discusses criticism of politics in the old and new media and a new culture of protest. It addresses new forms of participation and the dangers of populism and right-wing extremism. It proposes institutional reforms of democracy, of the parliamentary system and the party state, in negotiations of coalition-building, in governmental declarations and for the policy output. The book concludes with a debate of normative models of democracy from ‘Post-democracy’ to ‘Neo-democracy’, models of justice and theories of democratic reform.

Klaus von Beyme, a highly distinguished German political scientist, has been recognised as a “Pioneer in the Study of Political Theory and Comparative Politics”. When he received the highly esteemed Mattei Dogan Award during the XXII World Congress of Political Science in Madrid on 12 July 2012, in his laudatio Rainer Eisfeld portrayed Klaus v. Beyme as a “Global Scholar and Public Intellectual”. On the occasion of Klaus v. Beyme’s 80th birthday this book offers a selection of his major previously published and new texts focusing on “Empirical Political Theory”, “The Evolution of Comparative Politics, Revival of Normative Political Theory in Empirical Research”, “Theodor W. Adorno - Political Theory as Theory of Aesthetics”, “Historical Forerunners of Policy Studies”, “Political Institutions – Old and New”, “Representative Democracy and the Populist Temptation”, “Political Advisors to Politicians”, and on “The Concept of Political Class: A New Dimension of Research on Elites?”.

A study of 150 key decisions in the first 12 Federal Diets (1949-1994). The book examines policy formulation, parliamentary decision-making and control of legislation.