Download or read book Caring Democracy written by Joan C. Tronto and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans now face a caring deficit: there are simply too many demands on people’s time for us to care adequately for our children, elderly people, and ourselves.At the same time, political involvement in the United States is at an all-time low, and although political life should help us to care better, people see caring as unsupported by public life and deem the concerns of politics as remote from their lives. Caring Democracy argues that we need to rethink American democracy, as well as our fundamental values and commitments, from a caring perspective. The idea that production and economic life are the most important political and human concerns ignores the reality that caring, for ourselves and others, should be the highest value that shapes how we view the economy, politics, and institutions such as schools and the family. Care is at the center of our human lives, but Tronto argues it is currently too far removed from the concerns of politics. Caring Democracy traces the reasons for this disconnection and argues for the need to make care, not economics, the central concern of democratic political life. Joan C. Tronto is a Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (Routledge).

Download or read book The Taming of Democracy Assistance written by Sarah Sunn Bush and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-30 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most government programs seeking to aid democracy abroad do not directly confront dictators. This book explains how organizational politics 'tamed' democracy assistance.

Download or read book Who Cares written by Joan C. Tronto and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2015 winner of the Brown Democracy Medal, Joan C. Tronto, argues in Who Cares? that we need to rethink American democracy, as well as our own fundamental values and commitments, from a caring perspective. Asserting that Americans are facing a "caring deficit"—that there are simply too many demands on our time to care adequately for children, elderly people, and ourselves—she asks us to reconsider how we allocate care responsibilities. At the same time, while democratic politics should help citizens to care better, most people see caring as unsupported by public life and deem the concerns of politics as too remote from their lives to make a difference in this sphere. Tronto traces the reasons for this disconnect and argues for the need to make care, not economics, the central concern of democratic political life.

Download or read book Worldly Ethics written by Ella Myers and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the spirit that animates collective action? What is the ethos of democracy? Worldly Ethics offers a powerful and original response to these questions, arguing that associative democratic politics, in which citizens join together and struggle to shape shared conditions, requires a world-centered ethos. This distinctive ethos, Ella Myers shows, involves care for "worldly things," which are the common and contentious objects of concern around which democratic actors mobilize. In articulating the meaning of worldly ethics, she reveals the limits of previous modes of ethics, including Michel Foucault's therapeutic model, based on a "care of the self," and Emmanuel Levinas's charitable model, based on care for the Other. Myers contends that these approaches occlude the worldly character of political life and are therefore unlikely to inspire and support collective democratic activity. The alternative ethics she proposes is informed by Hannah Arendt's notion of amor mundi, or love of the world, and it focuses on the ways democratic actors align around issues, goals, or things in the world, practicing collaborative care for them. Myers sees worldly ethics as a resource that can inspire and motivate ordinary citizens to participate in democratic politics, and the book highlights civic organizations that already embody its principles.

Download or read book Does Democracy Matter written by Adrian Basora and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-03-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confidence in the future of democracy has been shaken by the authoritarian resurgence of the past decade, and some now argue that it is not realistic for the US to continue to champion democracy abroad. Does Democracy Matter? provides the conclusions of eleven scholars from widely different backgrounds who ask whether and, if so, how the US should support democracy beyond its own borders. The authors agree that American strategic interests are served in the long run by the spread of democracy abroad, but they differ as to how this support meshes with other national security goals. The concluding chapter outlines a system of triage for realistically assessing where and how such assistance can be effective in promoting US security interests. Contributions by Adrian A. Basora, Sarah Bush, Larry Diamond, Carl Gershman, Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Melinda Haring, Michal Kořan, Richard Kraemer, Agnieszka Marczyk, Tsveta Petrova, and Kenneth Yalowitz.

Download or read book Advancing Democracy Abroad written by Michael McFaul and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Advancing Democracy Abroad, McFaul explains how democracy provides a more accountable system of government, greater economic prosperity, and better security compared with other systems of government. He then shows how Americans have benefited from the advance of democracy abroad in the past, and speculates about security, economic, and moral benefits for the United States from potential democratic gains around the world.

Download or read book Caring Democracy written by Joan C. Tronto and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rethinking of American democracy that puts caring responsibilities at the center Americans now face a caring deficit: there are simply too many demands on people’s time for us to care adequately for our children, elderly people, and ourselves.At the same time, political involvement in the United States is at an all-time low, and although political life should help us to care better, people see caring as unsupported by public life and deem the concerns of politics as remote from their lives. Caring Democracy argues that we need to rethink American democracy, as well as our fundamental values and commitments, from a caring perspective. What it means to be a citizen is to be someone who takes up the challenge: how should we best allocate care responsibilities in society? Joan Tronto argues that we need to look again at how gender, race, class, and market forces misallocate caring responsibilities and think about freedom and equality from the standpoint of making caring more just. The idea that production and economic life are the most important political and human concerns ignores the reality that caring, for ourselves and others, should be the highest value that shapes how we view the economy, politics, and institutions such as schools and the family. Care is at the center of our human lives, but Tronto argues it is currently too far removed from the concerns of politics. Caring Democracy traces the reasons for this disconnection and argues for the need to make care, not economics, the central concern of democratic political life.

Download or read book Care Ethics Democratic Citizenship and the State written by Petr Urban and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reflects on theoretical developments in the political theory of care and new applications of care ethics in different contexts. The chapters provide original and fresh perspectives on the seminal notions and topics of a politically formulated ethics of care. It covers concepts such as democratic citizenship, social and political participation, moral and political deliberation, solidarity and situated attentive knowledge. It engages with current debates on marketizing and privatizing care, and deals with issues of state care provision and democratic caring institutions. It speaks to the current political and societal challenges, including the crisis of Western democracy related to the rise of populism and identity politics worldwide. The book brings together perspectives of care theorists from three different continents and ten different countries and gives voice to their unique local insights from various socio-political and cultural contexts. Chapter 11 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Download or read book Caring Confrontations for Education and Democracy written by R. Scott Webster and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caring Confrontations for Education and Democracy makes a compelling case for redirecting current practices of education to focus on being educated rather than having an education. The book offers a detailed analysis of how an education for democracy must encourage commitment to important ideals and strengthen the vulnerabilities of people which make them easily manipulated by politicians and the media. It addresses the need for education that focusses on people’s mode of being, so that in addition to becoming knowledgeable and skilful, people develop the disposition that is more appropriate for democratic living. Through embodying this approach of authentic spiritual growth through education, this book explores the idea of caring confrontations and critical reflection to enable personal change and growth. Providing a thoughtful analysis of the role of education in democracy, the book will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of philosophy of education, educational theory and democratic education.

Download or read book Health Care Revolt written by Michael Fine and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2018-09-01 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. does not have a health system. Instead we have market for health-related goods and services, a market in which the few profit from the public’s ill-health. Health Care Revolt looks around the world for examples of health care systems that are effective and affordable, pictures such a system for the U.S., and creates a practical playbook for a political revolution in health care that will allow the nation to protect health while strengthening democracy. Dr. Fine writes with the wisdom of a clinician, the savvy of a state public health commissioner, the precision of a scholar, and the energy and commitment of a community organizer.

Download or read book The Democracy Fix written by Caroline Fredrickson and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The former special assistant for legislative affairs to President Clinton, president of the American Constitution Society, and author of the "damn fine" (Elle) Under the Bus shows how the left can undo the right's damage and take the country back Despite representing the beliefs of a minority of the American public on many issues, conservatives are in power not just in Washington, DC, but also in state capitals and courtrooms across the country. They got there because, while progressives fought to death over the nuances of policy and to bring attention to specific issues, conservatives focused on simply gaining power by gaming our democracy. They understood that policy follows power, not the other way around. Now, in a sensational new book, Caroline Fredrickson—who has had a front-row seat on the political drama in DC for decades while working to shape progressive policies as special assistant for legislative affairs to President Clinton, chief of staff to Senator Maria Cantwell, deputy chief of staff to Senator Tom Daschle, and president of the American Constitution Society—argues that it's time for progressives to focus on winning. She shows us how we can learn from the Right by having the determination to focus on judicial elections, state power, and voter laws without stooping to their dishonest, rule-breaking tactics. We must be ruthless in thinking through how to change the rules of the game to regain power, expand the franchise, end voter suppression, win judicial elections, and fight for transparency and fairness in our political system, and Fredrickson shows us how.

Download or read book Distributed Democracy written by Carey Doberstein and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The governance of health care in Ontario has long provided opportunities for citizens and stakeholders to participate, deliberate, and influence health care policy and investment decisions. Yet, despite providing opportunities for deliberation and influence amongst citizens, we don’t know how democratic the system actually is. Distributed Democracy advances an original analytical framework to guide an investigation of democracy and accountability relationships in complex policy making environments. Applying the analytical framework in the context of health care governance in Ontario from 2004–2019, Carey Doberstein shows that the popular criticisms of health care governance in Ontario are misplaced. The democratic system of local health care governance is often plagued by severed connections among the various layers of deliberation and policy-making. An incisive analysis with considerable relevance for policy-makers and across academic disciplines, Distributed Democracy makes an important contribution to our understanding of policy development and decision-making as well as the limitations and potential of distributed democratic accountability.

Download or read book Democracy s News written by G. Michael Killenberg and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2023-02-20 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Founding, America’s faith in a democratic republic has depended on citizens who could be trusted to be communicators. Vigorous talk about equality, rights, and collaboration fueled the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution with its amendments. In a republic, the people set the terms for their lives not individually, but in community. The genius of keeping it alive exists in how everyday citizens talk and listen, write and read, for a common good. Dialogue and deliberation—rather than an accumulation of individual preferences—sustains a republic, yet a diminished and scarred institution of journalism jeopardizes citizens’ access to shared and truthful information. A disturbing “what’s in it for me?” attitude has taken over many citizens, and a creeping, autocratic sense of dismissive accusation too often characterizes the political style of elected officials. The basic fuel for democracy is the willingness of informed citizens to take each other seriously as they talk about political choices. Once we begin to clam up, build walls, and dismiss each other, we unravel the threads tying us to the Founders’ vision of a republic. A free press and free speech become meaningless if not supported by sustained listening to multiple positions. There are those who profit by dividing citizens into two camps: a comfortable “us” versus a scary “them.” They make their case with accusations and often with lies. They warp the very meaning of communication, hoping citizens never truly discover each other’s humanity. Democracy’s News discusses today’s problems of public communication in the context of history, law, and interpersonal life. News should not be something to dread, mistrust, or shun. Aided by reliable, factual journalism, citizens can develop a community-based knowledge to cope with social issues great and small. They come to treat neighbors and strangers as more than stereotypes or opponents. They become collaborators with whom to identify and sustain a working republic where news, citizenship, and public discourse merge.

Download or read book Citizen Support for Democratic and Autocratic Regimes written by Marlene Mauk and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-04-29 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Citizen Support for Democratic and Autocratic Regimes takes a political-culture perspective on the struggle between democracy and autocracy by examining how these regimes fare in the eyes of their citizens. Taking a globally comparative approach, it studies both the levels as well as the individual- and system-level sources of political support in democracies and autocracies worldwide. The book develops an explanatory model of regime support which includes both individual- and system level determinants and specifies not only the general causal mechanisms and pathways through which these determinants affect regime support but also spells out how these effects might vary between the two types of regimes. It empirically tests its propositions using multi-level structural equation modeling and a comprehensive dataset that combines recent public-opinion data from six cross-national survey projects with aggregate data from various sources for more than 100 democracies and autocracies. It finds that both the levels and individual-level sources of regime support are the same in democracies and autocracies, but that the way in which system-level context factors affect regime support differs between the two types of regimes. The results enhance our understanding of what determines citizen support for fundamentally different regimes, help assessing the present and future stability of democracies and autocracies, and provide clear policy implications to those interested in strengthening support for democracy and/or fostering democratic change in autocracies. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich

Download or read book The Taming of Democracy Assistance written by Sarah Sunn Bush and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-30 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few government programs that aid democracy abroad today seek to foster regime change. Technical programs that do not confront dictators are more common than the aid to dissidents and political parties that once dominated the field. What explains this 'taming' of democracy assistance? This book offers the first analysis of that puzzle. In contrast to previous research on democracy aid, it focuses on the survival instincts of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that design and implement democracy assistance. To survive, Sarah Bush argues that NGOs seek out tamer types of aid, especially as they become more professional. Diverse evidence - including three decades of new project-level data, case studies of democracy assistance in Jordan and Tunisia, and primary documents gathered from NGO archives - supports the argument. This book provides new understanding of foreign influence and moral actors in world politics, with policy implications for democracy in the Middle East.

Download or read book Democracies Divided written by Thomas Carothers and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A must-read for anyone concerned about the fate of contemporary democracies.”—Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Why divisions have deepened and what can be done to heal them As one part of the global democratic recession, severe political polarization is increasingly afflicting old and new democracies alike, producing the erosion of democratic norms and rising societal anger. This volume is the first book-length comparative analysis of this troubling global phenomenon, offering in-depth case studies of countries as wide-ranging and important as Brazil, India, Kenya, Poland, Turkey, and the United States. The case study authors are a diverse group of country and regional experts, each with deep local knowledge and experience. Democracies Divided identifies and examines the fissures that are dividing societies and the factors bringing polarization to a boil. In nearly every case under study, political entrepreneurs have exploited and exacerbated long-simmering divisions for their own purposes—in the process undermining the prospects for democratic consensus and productive governance. But this book is not simply a diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Each case study discusses actions that concerned citizens and organizations are taking to counter polarizing forces, whether through reforms to political parties, institutions, or the media. The book’s editors distill from the case studies a range of possible ways for restoring consensus and defeating polarization in the world’s democracies. Timely, rigorous, and accessible, this book is of compelling interest to civic activists, political actors, scholars, and ordinary citizens in societies beset by increasingly rancorous partisanship.

Download or read book Freedom in the World 2018 written by Freedom House and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 1040 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom in the World is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The methodology of this survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories.