Download or read book Deliberative Democracy in America written by Ethan J. Leib and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are taught in civics class that the Constitution provides for three basic branches of government: executive, judicial, and legislative. While the President and Congress as elected by popular vote are representative, can they really reflect accurately the will and sentiment of the populace? Or do money and power dominate everyday politics to the detriment of true self-governance? Is there a way to put &"We the people&" back into government? Ethan Leib thinks there is and offers this blueprint for a fourth branch of government as a way of giving the people a voice of their own. While drawing on the rich theoretical literature about deliberative democracy, Leib concentrates on designing an institutional scheme for embedding deliberation in the practice of American democratic government. At the heart of his scheme is a process for the adjudication of issues of public policy by assemblies of randomly selected citizens convened to debate and vote on the issues, resulting in the enactment of laws subject both to judicial review and to possible veto by the executive and legislative branches. The &"popular&" branch would fulfill a purpose similar to the ballot initiative and referendum but avoid the shortcomings associated with those forms of direct democracy. Leib takes special pains to show how this new branch would be integrated with the already existing governmental and political institutions of our society, including administrative agencies and political parties, and would thus complement rather than supplant them.
Download or read book Imagining Deliberative Democracy in the Early American Republic written by Sandra M. Gustafson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-05-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deliberation, in recent years, has emerged as a form of civic engagement worth reclaiming. In this persuasive book, Sandra M. Gustafson combines historical literary analysis and political theory in order to demonstrate that current democratic practices of deliberation are rooted in the civic rhetoric that flourished in the early American republic. Though the U.S. Constitution made deliberation central to republican self-governance, the ethical emphasis on group deliberation often conflicted with the rhetorical focus on persuasive speech. From Alexis de Tocqueville’s ideas about the deliberative basis of American democracy through the works of Walt Whitman, John Dewey, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., Gustafson shows how writers and speakers have made the aesthetic and political possibilities of deliberation central to their autobiographies, manifestos, novels, and orations. Examining seven key writers from the early American republic—including James Fenimore Cooper, David Crockett, and Daniel Webster—whose works of deliberative imagination explored the intersections of style and democratic substance, Gustafson offers a mode of historical and textual analysis that displays the wide range of resources imaginative language can contribute to political life.
Download or read book Why Deliberative Democracy written by Amy Gutmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most widely debated conception of democracy in recent years is deliberative democracy--the idea that citizens or their representatives owe each other mutually acceptable reasons for the laws they enact. Two prominent voices in the ongoing discussion are Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. In Why Deliberative Democracy?, they move the debate forward beyond their influential book, Democracy and Disagreement. What exactly is deliberative democracy? Why is it more defensible than its rivals? By offering clear answers to these timely questions, Gutmann and Thompson illuminate the theory and practice of justifying public policies in contemporary democracies. They not only develop their theory of deliberative democracy in new directions but also apply it to new practical problems. They discuss bioethics, health care, truth commissions, educational policy, and decisions to declare war. In "What Deliberative Democracy Means," which opens this collection of essays, they provide the most accessible exposition of deliberative democracy to date. They show how deliberative democracy should play an important role even in the debates about military intervention abroad. Why Deliberative Democracy? contributes to our understanding of how democratic citizens and their representatives can make justifiable decisions for their society in the face of the fundamental disagreements that are inevitable in diverse societies. Gutmann and Thompson provide a balanced and fair-minded approach that will benefit anyone intent on giving reason and reciprocity a more prominent place in politics than power and special interests.
Download or read book The Mild Voice of Reason written by Joseph M. Bessette and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, many Americans and more than a few political scientists have come to believe that democratic deliberation in Congress—whereby judgments are made on the merits of policies reflecting the interests and desires of American citizens—is more myth than reality. Rather, pressure from special interest groups, legislative bargaining, and the desire of incumbents to be reelected are thought to originate in American legislative politics. While not denying such influences, Joseph M. Bessette argues that the institutional framework created by the founding fathers continues to foster a government that is both democratic and deliberative, at least to some important degree. Drawing on original research, case studies of policymaking in Congress, and portraits of American lawmakers, Bessette demonstrates not only the limitations of nondeliberative explanations for how laws are made but also the continued vitality of genuine reasoning on the merits of public policy. Bessette discusses the contributions of the executive branch to policy deliberation, and looks at the controversial issue of the proper relationship of public opinion to policymaking. Informed by Bessette's nine years of public service in city and federal government, The Mild Voice of Reason offers important insights into the real workings of American democracy, articulates a set of standards by which to assess the workings of our governing institutions, and clarifies the forces that promote or inhibit the collective reasoning about common goals so necessary to the success of American democracy. "No doubt the best-publicized recent book-length work on Congress is columnist George Will's diatribe in praise of term limits in which the core of his complaint is that Congress does not deliberate in its decision-making. Readers who are inclined to share that fantasy would do well to consult the work of Joseph M. Bessette. He turns up massive amounts of material attesting to the centrality of deliberation in congressional life."—Nelson W. Polsby, Presidential Studies Quarterly
Download or read book The Mild Voice of Reason written by Joseph M. Bessette and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy written by André Bächtiger and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 1054 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deliberative democracy has been one of the main games in contemporary political theory for two decades, growing enormously in size and importance in political science and many other disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy takes stock of deliberative democracy as a research field, in philosophy, in various research programmes in the social sciences and law, and in political practice around the globe. It provides a concise history of deliberative ideals in political thought and discusses their philosophical origins. The Handbook locates deliberation in political systems with different spaces, publics, and venues, including parliaments, courts, governance networks, protests, mini-publics, old and new media, and everyday talk. It engages with practical applications, mapping deliberation as a reform movement and as a device for conflict resolution, documenting the practice and study of deliberative democracy around the world and in global governance.
Download or read book Direct Deliberative Democracy written by Crittenden Jack Crittenden and published by Black Rose Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As American politics becomes ever more dominated by powerful vested interests, positive change seems permanently stymied. Left out in the cold by the political process, citizens are frustrated and despairing. How can we take back our democracy from the grip of oligarchy and bring power to the people? In Direct Deliberative Democracy, Jack Crittenden and Debra Campbell offer up a better way for government to reflect citizens' interests. It begins with a startlingly basic question: "e;Why don't we the people govern?"e; In this provocative book, the authors mount a powerful case that the time has come for more direct democracy in the United States, showing that the circumstances that made the Constitutional framers' arguments so convincing more than two hundred years ago have changed dramatically-and that our democracy needs to change with them. With money, lobbyists, and corporations now dominating local, state, and national elections, the authors argue that now is the time for citizens to take control of their government by deliberating together to make public policies and laws directly. At the heart of their approach is a proposal for a new system of "e;legislative juries,"e; in which the jury system would be used as a model for selecting citizens to create ballot initiatives. This would enable citizens to level the playing field, bring little-heard voices into the political arena, and begin the process of transforming our democracy into one that works for, not against, its citizens.
Download or read book Deliberative Democracy and Social Movements written by Andrea Felicetti and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-12-14 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deliberative democracy is increasingly central in democratic theory and its concepts are employed in a growing number of fields, including social movement studies and environmental politics. At the same time, contemporary citizen activism seems to feature some forms of engagement that resonate with deliberative democratic ideas. This book provides an in-depth investigation of the qualities of citizens’ engagement from a deliberative democratic standpoint. The key concept through which such qualities are investigated is ‘deliberative capacity’, the extent to which organisations host authentic, inclusive, and consequential discursive processes. This book is based on a comparative study of four grassroots local initiatives, two from Australia (in Tasmania and Queensland) and two from Italy (in Emilia-Romagna and Sicily). By offering a critical assessment of deliberation in social movement organisations, this study identifies key aspects affecting their ability to pursue democratic deliberation and sheds new light on the role of community actors in deliberative democracy.
Download or read book Deliberation Participation and Democracy written by Shawn W. Rosenberg and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-11-09 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political participation is falling and citizen alienation and cynicism is increasing. This volume brings together the first work of this kind by leading scholars in the US and Europe to consider the issue. Four of the leading philosophers of deliberative democracy contribute their commentaries on the groundbreaking empirical research.
Download or read book Deliberative Democracy and the Plural Polity written by Michael Rabinder James and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pathbreaking work, the author integrates questions of justice and stability through a model of deliberative democracy in the plural polity. "Deliberative Democracy and the Plural Polity" provides a realistic but critical reform agenda that can animate struggles for justice in an enormously diverse world.
Download or read book Hearing the Other Side written by Diana C. Mutz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-13 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines how people interact with those whose political views differ from their own in the context of the contemporary United States. It links political theory and empirical research and suggests that it is doubtful that an extremely activist political culture can also be a heavily deliberative one.
Download or read book Congress and the People written by Donald R. Wolfensberger and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 2001-04-27 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will some form of direct democracy supplant representative, deliberative government in the twenty-first century United States? That question is at the heart of Donald R. Wolfensberger's history of Congress and congressional reform, which runs back to the Constitution's creation of a popularly elected House of Representatives and forward to the surreal ending of the 105th Congress, featuring barrels of pork, resignation of the speaker, and impeachment of the president. The author's expertise comes from twenty-eight years as a staff member in the House, culminating in service as chief of staff of the powerful House Rules Committee. He was a top parliamentary expert and a principal Republican procedural strategist. Sensitive to the power of process, Wolfensberger is an authoritative guide to reform efforts of earlier eras. And as a participant in reforms since the 1960s, he offers a unique perspective on forging the "1970s sunshine coalition," televising House proceedings, debating term limits, and coping with democracy in an electronic age.
Download or read book Deliberative Democracy written by Jon Elster and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-03-28 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume assesses the strengths and weaknesses of deliberative democracy.
Download or read book Deliberative Acts written by Arabella Lyon and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-06-29 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twenty-first century is characterized by the global circulation of cultures, norms, representations, discourses, and human rights claims; the arising conflicts require innovative understandings of decision making. Deliberative Acts develops a new, cogent theory of performative deliberation. Rather than conceiving deliberation within the familiar frameworks of persuasion, identification, or procedural democracy, it privileges speech acts and bodily enactments that constitute deliberation itself, reorienting deliberative theory toward the initiating moment of recognition, a moment in which interlocutors are positioned in relationship to each other and so may begin to construct a new lifeworld. By approaching human rights not as norms or laws, but as deliberative acts, Lyon conceives rights as relationships among people and as ongoing political and historical projects developing communal norms through global and cross-cultural interactions.
Download or read book Deliberative Systems written by John Parkinson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-05 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new statement of deliberative theory that shows how states, even transnational systems, can be deliberatively democratic.
Download or read book When the People Speak written by James S. Fishkin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title describes a new method of consulting the public that has been tried successfully around the world. It combines the theory of democracy with actual practice.
Download or read book Talking Together written by Lawrence R. Jacobs and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the conventional wisdom that Americans are less engaged than ever in national life and the democratic process, Talking Together paints the most comprehensive portrait available of public deliberation in the United States and explains why it is important to America’s future. The authors’ original and extensive research reveals how, when, and why citizens talk to each other about the issues of the day. They find that—in settings ranging from one-on-one conversations to e-mail exchanges to larger and more formal gatherings—a surprising two-thirds of Americans regularly participate in public discussions about such pressing issues as the Iraq War, economic development, and race relations. Pinpointing the real benefits of public discourse while considering arguments that question its importance, Talking Together presents an authoritative and clear-eyed assessment of deliberation’s function in American governance. In the process, it offers concrete recommendations for increasing the power of talk to foster political action.
