Download or read book Measuring Democracy written by Gerardo L. Munck and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2009-04-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although democracy is a widely held value, concrete measurement of it is elusive. Gerardo L. Munck’s constructive assessment of the methods used to measure democracies promises to bring order to the debate in academia and in practice. Drawing on his years of academic research on democracy and measurement and his practical experience evaluating democratic practices for the United Nations and the Organization of American States, Munck's discussion bridges the theories of academia with practical applications. In proposing a more open and collaborative relationship between theory and action, he makes the case for reassessing how democracy is measured and encourages fundamental changes in methodology. Munck’s field-tested framework for quantifying and qualifying democracy is built around two instruments he developed: the UN Development Programme’s Electoral Democracy Index and a case-by-case election monitoring tool used by the OAS. Measuring Democracy offers specific, real-world lessons that scholars and practitioners can use to improve the quality and utility of data about democracy.

Download or read book Education Justice Democracy written by Danielle Allen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-03-04 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Education is a contested topic, and not just politically. For years scholars have approached it from two different points of view: one empirical, focused on explanations for student and school success and failure, and the other philosophical, focused on education’s value and purpose within the larger society. Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. Education, Justice, and Democracy does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines. The contributors explore how the institutions and practices of education can support democracy, by creating the conditions for equal citizenship and egalitarian empowerment, and how they can advance justice, by securing social mobility and cultivating the talents and interests of every individual. Then the authors evaluate constraints on achieving the goals of democracy and justice in the educational arena and identify strategies that we can employ to work through or around those constraints. More than a thorough compendium on a timely and contested topic, Education, Justice, and Democracy exhibits an entirely new, more deeply composed way of thinking about education as a whole and its importance to a good society.

Download or read book Justice Is an Option written by Robert Meister and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-19 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than ten years after the worst crisis since the Great Depression, the financial sector is thriving. But something is deeply wrong. Taxpayers bore the burden of bailing out “too big to fail” banks, but got nothing in return. Inequality has soared, and a populist backlash against elites has shaken the foundations of our political order. Meanwhile, financial capitalism seems more entrenched than ever. What is the left to do? Justice Is an Option uses those problems—and the framework of finance that created them—to reimagine historical justice. Robert Meister returns to the spirit of Marx to diagnose our current age of finance. Instead of closing our eyes to the political and economic realities of our era, we need to grapple with them head-on. Meister does just that, asking whether the very tools of finance that have created our vastly unequal world could instead be made to serve justice and equality. Meister here formulates nothing less than a democratic financial theory for the twenty-first century—one that is equally conversant in political philosophy, Marxism, and contemporary politics. Justice Is an Option is a radical, invigorating first page of a new—and sorely needed—leftist playbook.

Download or read book Democracy Expertise and Academic Freedom written by Robert C. Post and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-24 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading American legal scholar offers a surprising account of the incompleteness of prevailing theories of freedom of speech. Robert C. Post shows that the familiar understanding of the First Amendment, which stresses the “marketplace of ideas” and which holds that "everyone is entitled to an opinion," is inadequate to create and preserve the expert knowledge that is necessary for a modern democracy to thrive. For a modern society reliably to answer such questions as whether nicotine causes cancer, the free and open exchange of ideas must be complemented by standards of scientific competence and practice that are both hierarchical and judgmental. Post develops a theory of First Amendment rights that seeks to explain both the need for the free formation of public opinion and the need for the distribution and creation of expertise. Along the way he offers a new and useful account of constitutional doctrines of academic freedom. These doctrines depend both upon free expression and the necessity of the kinds of professional judgment that universities exercise when they grant or deny tenure, or that professional journals exercise when they accept or reject submissions.

Download or read book Democracy and Education written by John Dewey and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 1916 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: . Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.

Download or read book Democracy in Motion written by Tina Nabatchi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the field of deliberative civic engagement is growing rapidly around the world, our knowledge and understanding of its practice and impacts remain highly fragmented. Democracy in Motion represents the first comprehensive attempt to assess the practice and impact of deliberative civic engagement. Organized in a series of chapters that address the big questions of deliberative civic engagement, it uses theory, research, and practice from around the world to explore what we know about, how we know it, and what remains to be understood. More than a simple summary of research, the book is designed to be accessible and useful to a wide variety of audiences, from scholars and practitioners working in numerous disciplines and fields, to public officials, activists, and average citizens who are seeking to utilize deliberative civic engagement in their communities. The book significantly enhances current scholarship, serving as a guide to existing research and identifying useful future research. It also has promise for enhancing practice, for example by helping practitioners, public officials, and others better think through and articulate issues of design and outcomes, thus enabling them to garner more support for public deliberation activities. In addition, by identifying what remains to be learned about public deliberation, practitioners and public officials may be inspired to connect with scholars to conduct research and evaluations of their efforts.

Download or read book Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice written by Amel Ahmed and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the dynamics of electoral system choice and raises questions about the democratic credentials of the early processes of democratization.

Download or read book Social Choice and Democratic Values written by Eerik Lagerspetz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive overview and critique of the most important political and philosophical interpretations of the basic results of social choice, assessing their plausibility and seeking to identify the links between the theory of social choice and the more traditional issues of political theory and philosophy. In this regard, the author eschews a strong methodological commitment or technical formalism; the approach is instead based on the presentation of political facts and illustrated via numerous real-life examples. This allows the reader to get acquainted with the philosophical and political dispute surrounding voting and collective decision-making and its links to social choice theory.

Download or read book A Different Democracy written by Steven L. Taylor and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four distinguished scholars in political science analyze American democracy from a comparative point of view, exploring how the U.S. political system differs from that of thirty other democracies and what those differences ultimately mean for democratic performance. This essential text approaches the following institutions from a political engineering point of view: constitutions, electoral systems, and political parties, as well as legislative, executive, and judicial power. The text looks at democracies from around the world over a two-decade time frame. The result is not only a fresh view of the much-discussed theme of American exceptionalism but also an innovative approach to comparative politics that treats the United States as but one case among many. An ideal textbook for both American and comparative politics courses.

Download or read book Global Democratic Theory written by Daniel Bray and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-05-22 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global Democratic Theory is the first comprehensive introduction to the changing contours of democracy in today’s hyperconnected world. Accessibly written for readers new to the topic, it considers the impact of globalization and global forms of governance and activism on democratic politics and examines how democratic theory has responded to address these challenges, including calls for new forms of democracy to be developed beyond the nation-state and for greater public participation and accountability in existing global institutions. Divided into two parts, the book shows how globalization provides both new obstacles and new opportunities for democracy. Part I explores the shifts underway at the national and international levels that are challenging democracy within nation-states around the world. In response, new proposals for global and transnational democracy have emerged. Part II critically analyses five main approaches of ‘global democratic theory’ Ð liberal internationalism, cosmopolitan democracy, deliberative democracy, social democracy and radical democracy, focusing on their specific interpretation of the problems facing democracy, their normative claims, and the feasibility of their proposed pathways of democratization. The book’s extensive account of the problems and possibilities facing democracy today will be essential reading for students and scholars of politics, political theory and political philosophy.

Download or read book Monitoring Democracy written by Judith G. Kelley and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-25 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, governments and NGOs--in an effort to promote democracy, freedom, fairness, and stability throughout the world--have organized teams of observers to monitor elections in a variety of countries. But when more organizations join the practice without uniform standards, are assessments reliable? When politicians nonetheless cheat and monitors must return to countries even after two decades of engagement, what is accomplished? Monitoring Democracy argues that the practice of international election monitoring is broken, but still worth fixing. By analyzing the evolving interaction between domestic and international politics, Judith Kelley refutes prevailing arguments that international efforts cannot curb government behavior and that democratization is entirely a domestic process. Yet, she also shows that democracy promotion efforts are deficient and that outside actors often have no power and sometimes even do harm. Analyzing original data on over 600 monitoring missions and 1,300 elections, Kelley grounds her investigation in solid historical context as well as studies of long-term developments over several elections in fifteen countries. She pinpoints the weaknesses of international election monitoring and looks at how practitioners and policymakers might help to improve them.

Download or read book Analyzing American Democracy written by Jon R. Bond and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 945 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing American Democracy teaches students to think analytically by presenting current political science theories and research in answering the engaging, big questions facing American politics today. It serves as both an introduction to American politics and to the discipline of political science by reflecting the theoretical developments and empirical inquiry conducted by researchers. Every chapter highlights the most current research and discusses related public policy. It demonstrates for students how to think critically and analytically, bringing theoretical insight to contemporary American politics. More than just a comprehensive overview and description of how American politics works, Jon Bond and Kevin Smith demonstrate how politics can be studied systematically. Throughout the text, they introduce students to the insights gleaned from rational choice, behavioral, and biological approaches to politics. Understanding these three social scientific models and their applications helps students get the most out of their American government course and out of this text--they learn a way of thinking that they can use to make sense of future challenges facing the American polity. A number of features help aid comprehension and critical thinking: Key Questions at the start of every chapter frame the learning objectives and concepts Politics in Practice boxes in every chapter encourage students to think critically about how practice compares with theory Tables, Figures, Charts, and Maps throughout present the empirical details of American politics, helping students gain quantitative literacy Top Ten Takeaway Points at the end of every chapter recap the most important points covered but also help students discern the general principles that make sense of the numerous factual details Key Terms are bolded in the text, defined in the margins, recapped at the end of the chapter, and compiled in a glossary, all to help insure that students can effortlessly master the vocabulary of American politics and political science in order to move on to the more important concepts.

Download or read book Deliberative Democracy Now written by Edwina Barvosa and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-07 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While millions feel politically marginalized, there is evidence that democracy is evolving into a conversation-based, public-centered practice called deliberative democracy. In this new form of democracy, public discussion, conscious reflection, and collective choice drive democratic governance and have the power to override democratic dysfunction. Illustrating this emerging possibility with examples from 28 years of US public engagement on LGBT equality, this book offers a practical model for the growth of deliberative democracy in which everyone can take part. It identifies the necessary social catalysts, the role of social networks and technology, and key pathways to addressing unconscious bias, hidden fears, and identity based polarization as they were overcome in the LGBT case. It demonstrates how each person can gain voice and influence in a deliberative democracy in which people once again become the true source of political power. This book will interest anyone who cares about the future of democracy.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook to Referendums and Direct Democracy written by Laurence Morel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-12 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last 30 years referendums have played an increasingly important role in determining government policy. Recent high profile referendums in Scotland, Catalonia and Ukraine have continued the movement towards independence referendums following decolonization and the end of the Cold War. The Greek bailout referendum and Britain’s vote on membership of the EU reflect a tradition of European states giving their people a direct say in the transfer of sovereign powers to the European Union seen through the ratification of key treaties such as Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon. This Routledge Handbook covers key aspects and issues of direct democracy and referendums throughout the world including: •their history; •when, why, where, how and on which issues referendums are held; •why some referendums are more democratic than others; •how referendums are won; •whether they produce good policies; •if referendums increase participation and improve the quality of representative democracies; •do referendums increase trust in democracy and the political actors; •the impact of new technology on the possibilities, methods and frequency of direct public political participation; •how they should be regulated. Covering other related areas such as recall, citizen juries and random selection, this compendium is an indispensable guide to referendums and the workings of modern democracy.

Download or read book Democracy and Financial Order Legal Perspectives written by Matthias Goldmann and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-17 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the relationship between democracy and the financial order from various legal perspectives. Each of the nine contributions adopts a unique perspective on the legal and political challenges brought to the fore by the Global Financial Crisis. This crisis and the ensuing sovereign debt crisis in Europe are only the latest in a long series of financial crises around the globe in recent decades. By their very existence, but also as a result of the political turmoil they have created, these financial crises testify to the well-known tensions between democracy and a market-based economic and financial order. However, what is missing in this debate is an analysis of the role of law for reconciling democracy with a market-based financial order. To fill this lacuna, the book focuses on the controversy surrounding the concept of law, thereby adding another variable to the debate on the relation between democracy and capitalism. Each chapter addresses the concept of law from a particular theoretical angle, be it a full-grown legal theory or an approach in political economy that has a particular view of the law.

Download or read book The Sabbath school magazine ed by W Keddie written by Glasgow sabbath school union and published by . This book was released on 1875 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Democracy And Development In Southeast Asia written by Clark Neher and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-12 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the remarkable political and economic changes sweeping Southeast Asia, the authors take as their starting point the trend,albeit uneven,toward democratization. They focus specifically on Asian democracy,'" a form that has been adapted by Southeast Asians to suit their own particular needs.This book begins by building a framework for understanding democracy in its broadest sense. The authors investigate the uniquely Asian style of democracy, which borrows democratic political institutions and meshes them with the cultural patterns specific to each country. In separate chapters, the authors trace the evolutionary historical processes within each country, as well as citizen participation, electoral practices, and civil liberties. The chapters end with an assessment of the prospects for democracy in that nation as well as an evaluation of whether democratic regimes are necessary for developing successful economies and societies in the new international era.