Building on a survey of media institutions in eighteen West European and North American democracies, Hallin and Mancini identify the principal dimensions of variation in media systems and the political variables which have shaped their evolution. They go on to identify three major models of media system development (the Polarized Pluralist, Democratic Corporatist and Liberal models) to explain why the media have played a different role in politics in each of these systems, and to explore the ...

Since the end of the Cold War, international organisations have assumed a greater importance on the world stage. The United Nations has played a key role in all of the major security issues during this period - increasingly called upon to address other global problems such as poverty and international crime - while the European Union has created a single currency and moved towards the adoption of a constitution. The growing significance of the World Trade Organisation and other economic insti...