Overview
- Presents one of the first methodological empirical analyses of extra-electoral democracy
- Focuses on government accountability for media accusations
- Analyses a selection of countries crucial in demonstrating the limits of extra-electoral democracy
Part of the book series: Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century (CDC)
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Explaining Government Accountability: A Model of Supply and Demand
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Evaluating Government Accountability: Methodological Considerations and Empirical Results
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Democracy Analyzed Through the Lens of Accountability: Crisis or Transformation?
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
“The book is important in light of numerous recent examples of challenges for free speech and the media community in Europe and beyond. … It will be of interest nevertheless to follow up whether media allegations have transformative power for electoral outcomes – what makes them count in voters’ choices – timing, scale, accumulation, the accuser or the accountability forum they enfold on or else.” (Mila Moshelova, East European Politics, Vol. 38 (4), 2022)
“This is an important and timely contribution to the revitalisation of democracy studies … . This book can be read by both academic and non-academic audiences, as it situates government accountability in an era when the media performs such a significant role. … it can also be a valuable tool for populists.” (Georges Kordas, LSE Review of Books, blogs.lse.ac.uk, May 20, 2020)
“The book is an insightful and very well-researched contribution to understanding democratic promises and challenges on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dimova’s nuanced perspective on democracy as finding itself between crisis and transformation provides both a warning … and reason for optimism that the supply of accountability forums is not just an outcome but an opportunity. The book can thus claim to develop a separate research field that forges an integrated middle ground between models of crisis and transformation of democracy.” (Rumena Filipova, Democratization, December 17, 2019)
“Given the current attention on fake news, the focus of the book on the role of media in democracies, and on the accountability following media reports, is extremely pertinent. The fears about the backsliding from democratic norms in the former post-communist block also make this an important perspective. (Frank Vibert, Senior Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK)
“Gergana Dimova’s book is well timed, analytically sound, and theoretically creative. It is a much needed study given the dearth of writing on how governments (authoritarian or not) are held to account beyond the ballot box.” (Stanislav Markus, Associate Professor, University of South Carolina, USA)
“The book brings a distinct added value to democratic theory by discerning a phenomenon Dimova aptly names ‘accountability turn’. Her discussion of public accountability in electoral authoritarianism, which has come to afflict also mature democracies, is extremely timely. The masterful review of existing scholarship also makes this book a perfect teaching tool.” (Albena Azmanova, Reader in Political Theory, University of Kent, UK)
“In an age of fake news and deep fake, this book couldn't be more timely. Gergana Dimova takes a deep dive into the mechanics of media scandals, and various responses to them as a way to gage how democracies cope with the fracturing of electorates and the rise of multiple medias even as democracy itself comes under increasing pressure from populism and authoritarianism. In doing so, she assesses both the threat to and state of democracy in our highly mediatized era, and offers a far more resilient model of democratic responses to media scandals than we usually imagine even as her careful reading suggests the scope and endurance of the danger democracy is facing today.” (James Martel, Department of Political Science, San Francisco State University, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Democracy Beyond Elections
Book Subtitle: Government Accountability in the Media Age
Authors: Gergana Dimova
Series Title: Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25294-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-25293-9Published: 09 September 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-25296-0Published: 09 September 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-25294-6Published: 28 August 2019
Series ISSN: 2946-3416
Series E-ISSN: 2946-3424
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 339
Number of Illustrations: 23 b/w illustrations, 2 illustrations in colour
Topics: Democracy, Political Communication, Public Administration, Political Theory, European Politics