International Actors, Democratization and the Rule of Law

Do external factors facilitate or hamper domestic democratic development? Do international actors influence the development of greater civil and political freedom, democratic accountability, equality, responsiveness and the rule of law in domestic systems? How should we conceptualize, identify and evaluate the extent and nature of international influence? These are some of the complex questions that this volume approaches. Using new theoretical insights and empirical data, the contributors develop a model to analyze the transitional processes of Romania, Turkey, Serbia and Ukraine. In developing this argument, the book examines:the adoption, implementation and internalization of the rule of lawthe rule of law as a central dimension of liberal and substantive democracythe interaction between external and domestic structures and agentsOffering a different stance from most of the current literature on the subject, International Actors, Democratization and the Rule of Law makes an important contribution to our knowledge of the international dimensions of democratization. This book will be of importance to scholars, students and policy-makers with an interest in the rule of law, international relations theory and comparative politics.

"This innovative volume advances our understanding of variations in the quality of democracy, and of the precise international pathways involved. These pathways are traced by deploying three linked concepts - democratic anchoring, layering, and cyclicality. The project's analytical eclecticism provides a model that can be extended and generalized and that will enrich the comparative democratization literature." Laurence Whitehead, Nuffield College, Oxford, UK."An important study of how external actors influence democratic development, featuring a useful analytic taxonomy for understanding such influence, a telling focus on the rule of law, and well-grounded, absorbing country case studies." Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace., "This innovative volume advances our understanding of variations in the quality of democracy, and of the precise international pathways involved. These pathways are traced by deploying three linked concepts - democratic anchoring, layering, and cyclicality. The project's analytical eclecticism provides a model that can be extended and generalized and that will enrich the comparative democratization literature." Laurence Whitehead, Nuffield College, Oxford, UK."An important study of how external actors influence democratic development, featuring a useful analytic taxonomy for understanding such influence, a telling focus on the rule of law, and well-grounded, absorbing country case studies." Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Amichai Magen is W. Glenn Campbell National Fellow, Hoover Institution, andLecturer in Law, Stanford Law School, Stanford University, USA.Leonardo Morlino is Professor of Political Science at Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane at the University of Florence, Italy.