Download or read book The Character of American Democracy written by Jill Long Thompson and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We live in an age that demonstrates the powerful need for ethics in government. Democracy is a privilege that carries with it important responsibilities for the people and their representatives. As we look back on this era and determine the future of this nation, Dr. Long Thompson's book will be a resource for Americans who are seeking ways to secure our democracy and our future as a nation." Congressman John Lewis, Georgia's 5th District. Ethical leadership, steeped in integrity and fairness, matters. The future of our nation and our world depends upon the quality of America's character. In this uncompromising, absorbing look at our government and society today, Jill Long Thompson persuasively argues that we all have a meaningful role to play in shaping America's character and future. The citizenry, as well as their elected officials, are responsible for protecting fairness of participation and integrity in elections, as well as in the adoption and execution of laws. In this troubling time when the public is losing trust and confidence in our government, Jill Long Thompson shows us a bipartisan way forward.
Download or read book The Character of Democracy written by Richard A. Clucas and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Character of Democracy: How Institutions Shape Politics offers a uniquely comprehensive overview of the major democratic institutions found around the world, including electoral systems, party systems, presidential and parliamentary governments, legislatures, federalism, and constitutional courts. The authors first present five broad categories of democratic ideals that reflect the consent of the governed--meaningful elections, fair representation, accountability, majority rule and minority rights, and the functionality of the state--and then explain how well different institutional designs live up to these democratic ideals. For each institution, they provide an in-depth treatment of its related literature, describe variations in how it is structured around the world, and explain why these variations are important to how democratic political systems work. Case studies of the political structures found in Brazil, Germany, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States illustrate how differences in institutional design affect democratic government. Taking an analytical and scholarly approach that does not advocate any particular democratic design, The Character of Democracy is ideal for advanced courses in comparative politics and/or democratic institutions.
Download or read book The Problem of Democracy written by Nancy Isenberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Told with authority and style. . . Crisply summarizing the Adamses' legacy, the authors stress principle over partisanship."--The Wall Street Journal How the father and son presidents foresaw the rise of the cult of personality and fought those who sought to abuse the weaknesses inherent in our democracy. Until now, no one has properly dissected the intertwined lives of the second and sixth (father and son) presidents. John and John Quincy Adams were brilliant, prickly politicians and arguably the most independently minded among leaders of the founding generation. Distrustful of blind allegiance to a political party, they brought a healthy skepticism of a brand-new system of government to the country's first 50 years. They were unpopular for their fears of the potential for demagoguery lurking in democracy, and--in a twist that predicted the turn of twenty-first century politics--they warned against, but were unable to stop, the seductive appeal of political celebrities Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. In a bold recasting of the Adamses' historical roles, The Problem of Democracy is a major critique of the ways in which their prophetic warnings have been systematically ignored over the centuries. It's also an intimate family drama that brings out the torment and personal hurt caused by the gritty conduct of early American politics. Burstein and Isenberg make sense of the presidents' somewhat iconoclastic, highly creative engagement with America's political and social realities. By taking the temperature of American democracy, from its heated origins through multiple upheavals, the authors reveal the dangers and weaknesses that have been present since the beginning. They provide a clear-eyed look at a decoy democracy that masks the reality of elite rule while remaining open, since the days of George Washington, to a very undemocratic result in the formation of a cult surrounding the person of an elected leader.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Political Philosophy written by David Estlund and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-07-19 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume includes 22 new pieces by leading political philosophers, on traditional issues (such as authority and equality) and emerging issues (such as race, and money in politics). The pieces are clear and accessible will interest both students and scholars working in philosophy, political science, law, economics, and more.
Download or read book Democracy Disfigured written by Nadia Urbinati and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Democracy Disfigured, Nadia Urbinati diagnoses the ills that beset the body politic in an age of hyper-partisanship and media monopolies and offers a spirited defense of the messy compromises and contentious outcomes that define democracy. Urbinati identifies three types of democratic disfiguration: the unpolitical, the populist, and the plebiscitarian. Each undermines a crucial division that a well-functioning democracy must preserve: the wall separating the free forum of public opinion from governmental institutions that enact the will of the people. Unpolitical democracy delegitimizes political opinion in favor of expertise. Populist democracy radically polarizes the public forum in which opinion is debated. And plebiscitary democracy overvalues the aesthetic and nonrational aspects of opinion. For Urbinati, democracy entails a permanent struggle to make visible the issues that citizens deem central to their lives. Opinion is thus a form of action as important as the mechanisms that organize votes and mobilize decisions. Urbinati focuses less on the overt enemies of democracy than on those who pose as its friends: technocrats wedded to procedure, demagogues who make glib appeals to "the people," and media operatives who, given their preference, would turn governance into a spectator sport and citizens into fans of opposing teams.
Download or read book Democracy in Question written by Alan Keenan and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the theoretical paradoxes and practical dilemmas that flow from the still radical idea that in a democracy it is the people who rule, and argues that accepting the open and uncertain character of democratic politics can lead to more sustainable and widespread forms of democratic engagement. The author engages theorists from a range of democratic thoughtRousseau, Arendt, Benhabib, Sandel, Laclau, and Mouffeto show how each either ignores or downplays the difficulties that democratic principles pose. Though there can be no entirely valid solution to the paradoxes that plague democracy, the author nonetheless argues that democratic politicsparticularly under contemporary conditions of social fragmentation and insecurityurgently requires new practical and rhetorical strategies. The book concludes by addressing the American context, elaborating the need for a language of democratic engagement less ensnared in the anti-political logic of moralism and resentment that now characterizes the American political spectrum.
Download or read book Power Diffusion and Democracy written by Julian Bernauer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-16 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a theoretically and methodologically sophisticated remapping and analysis of political-institutional power diffusion in democracies.
Download or read book Patterns of Democracy written by Arend Lijphart and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining 36 democracies from 1945 to 2010, this text arrives at conclusions about what type of democracy works best. It demonstrates that consensual systems stimulate economic growth, control inflation and unemployment, and limit budget deficits.
Download or read book Democracy and Constitutions written by Allan C. Hutchinson and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bold and unconventional, this book advocates for an institutional turn-about in the relationship between democracy and constitutionalism.
Download or read book Democracy in Translation written by Frederic Charles Schaffer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frederic C. Schaffer challenges the assumption often made by American scholars that democracy has been achieved in foreign countries when criteria such as free elections are met. Elections, he argues, often have cultural underpinnings that are invisible to outsiders. To examine grassroots understandings of democratic institutions and political concepts, Schaffer conducted fieldwork in Senegal, a mostly Islamic and agrarian country with a long history of electoral politics. Schaffer discovered that ideas of "demokaraasi" held by Wolof-speakers often reflect concerns about collective security. Many Senegalese see voting as less a matter of choosing leaders than of reinforcing community ties that may be called upon in times of crisis.By looking carefully at language, Schaffer demonstrates that institutional arrangements do not necessarily carry the same meaning in different cultural contexts. Democracy in Translation asks how social scientists should investigate the functioning of democratic institutions in cultures dissimilar from their own, and raises larger issues about the nature of democracy, the universality of democratic ideals, and the practice of cross-cultural research.
Download or read book The Dark Side of Democracy written by Michael Mann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Democracy written by Paul Cartledge and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Democracy: A Life holds out three unique research aims: a proper understanding of the origins and variety of ancient Greek democracies; a detailed account of the fate of democracy - both the institution and the word - in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds from the fifth century BCE to the 6th century CE; and a nuanced exploration of the ways in which all ancient Greek democracies differed from all modern so-called 'democracies'"--
Download or read book The Psychology of Democracy written by Fathali M. Moghaddam and published by American Psychological Association (APA). This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fathali M. Moghaddam explores how psychological factors influence the presence, potential development, or absence of democracy. Recommendations are given for promoting the psychological processes that foster democracy. Where democracy thrives, it seems far and away the best system of governance. Yet, relatively few countries have managed to transition successfully to democracy, and none of them have attained what Fathali M. Moghaddam calls "actualized democracy," the ideal in which all citizens share full, informed, equal participation in decision making. The obstacles to democratization are daunting, yet there is hope. What is it about human nature that seems to work for or against democracy? The Psychology of Democracy explores political development through the lens of psychological science. He examines the psychological factors influencing whether and how democracy develops within a society, identifies several conditions necessary for democracy (such as freedom of speech, minority rights, and universal suffrage), and explains how psychological factors influence these conditions. He also recommends steps to promote in citizens the psychological characteristics that foster democracy. Written in a style that is both accessible and intellectually engaging, the book skillfully integrates research and an array of illustrative examples from psychology, political science and international relations, history, and literature.
Download or read book Deliberative Democracy in Practice written by David Kahane and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deliberative democracy is a dominant paradigm in normative political philosophy. Deliberative democrats want politics to be more than a clash of contending interests, and they believe political decisions should emerge from reasoned dialogue among citizens. But can these ideals be realized in complex and unjust societies? This book brings together leading scholars who explore debates in deliberative democratic theory in four areas of practice: education, constitutions and state boundaries, indigenous-settler relations, and citizen participation and public consultation. This dynamic volume casts new light on the strengths and limitations of deliberative democratic theory, offering guidance to policy makers and to students and scholars interested in democratic justice.
Download or read book The Democratic Surround written by Fred Turner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “smart and fascinating” reassessment of postwar American culture and the politics of the 1960s from the author of From Counterculture to Cyberculture (Reason Magazine). We tend to think of the sixties as an explosion of creative energy and freedom that arose in direct revolt against the social restraint and authoritarian hierarchy of the early Cold War years. Yet, as Fred Turner reveals in The Democratic Surround, the decades that brought us the Korean War and communist witch hunts also witnessed an extraordinary turn toward explicitly democratic, open, and inclusive ideas of communication—and with them new, flexible models of social order. Surprisingly, he shows that it was this turn that brought us the revolutionary multimedia and wild-eyed individualism of the 1960s counterculture. In this prequel to his celebrated book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Turner rewrites the history of postwar America, showing how in the 1940s and ‘50s American liberalism offered a far more radical social vision than we now remember. He tracks the influential mid-century entwining of Bauhaus aesthetics with American social science and psychology. From the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the New Bauhaus in Chicago and Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Turner shows how some of the best-known artists and intellectuals of the forties developed new models of media, new theories of interpersonal and international collaboration, and new visions of an open, tolerant, and democratic self in direct contrast to the repression and conformity associated with the fascist and communist movements. He then shows how their work shaped some of the most significant media events of the Cold War, including Edward Steichen’s Family of Man exhibition, the multimedia performances of John Cage, and, ultimately, the psychedelic Be-Ins of the sixties. Turner demonstrates that by the end of the 1950s this vision of the democratic self and the media built to promote it would actually become part of the mainstream, even shaping American propaganda efforts in Europe. Overturning common misconceptions of these transformational years, The Democratic Surround shows just how much the artistic and social radicalism of the sixties owed to the liberal ideals of Cold War America, a democratic vision that still underlies our hopes for digital media today. “Brilliant . . . [an] excellent and thought-provoking book.” —Tropics of Meta
Download or read book A Democracy of Distinction written by Jill Frank and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-01-05 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy written by Carl Schmitt and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1988-06-22 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy. Described both as "the Hobbes of our age" and as "the philosophical godfather of Nazism," Carl Schmitt was a brilliant and controversial political theorist whose doctrine of political leadership and critique of liberal democratic ideals distinguish him as one of the most original contributors to modern political theory. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy. First published in 1923, it has often been viewed as an attempt to destroy parliamentarism; in fact, it was Schmitt's attempt to defend the Weimar constitution. The introduction to this new translation places the book in proper historical context and provides a useful guide to several aspects of Weimar political culture. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.
