Download or read book Democratic Efficiency written by Lee Ryan Miller and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2004-10-07 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking book demonstrates that the decentralized decision-making processes characteristic of democracies are responsible for making them the most successful countries in the world. Part I draws upon literature from fields as diverse as economics, computer architecture, and industrial organization to demonstrate that the more equally power is distributed in society, the closer government policy comes to maximizing aggregate social welfare. It also analyzes political business cycles, economic growth rates, trade protectionism, and military spending levels throughout the world, presenting a wealth of cross-national statistical evidence in support of the theory of democratic efficiency. Part II takes a critical look at the United States Congress. It details the organization of a congressional office and provides a fascinating minute-by-minute account of a week in the life of a member of the House of Representatives. It explains why the very organization of the American political system tends to short-circuit the intentions of its participants, however noble they might be. This scope of this book is so broad, and its conclusions so sweeping, that it belongs on the reading list of courses in American politics, political theory, comparative politics, international relations, and political economy.
Download or read book Democracy and Public Space written by John Parkinson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an online, interconnected world, democracy is increasingly made up of wikis and blogs, pokes and tweets. Citizens have become accidental journalists thanks to their handheld devices, politicians are increasingly working online, and the traditional sites of democracy - assemblies, public galleries, and plazas - are becoming less and less relevant with every new technology. And yet, this book argues, such views are leading us to confuse the medium with the message, focusing on electronic transmission when often what cyber citizens transmit is pictures and narratives of real democratic action in physical space. Democratic citizens are embodied, take up space, battle over access to physical resources, and perform democracy on physical stages at least as much as they engage with ideas in virtual space. Combining conceptual analysis with interviews and observation in capital cities on every continent, John Parkinson argues that democracy requires physical public space; that some kinds of space are better for performing some democratic roles than others; and that some of the most valuable kinds of space are under attack in developed democracies. He argues that accidental publics like shoppers and lunchtime crowds are increasingly valued over purposive, active publics, over citizens with a point to make or an argument to listen to. This can be seen not just in the way that traditional protest is regulated, but in the ways that ordinary city streets and parks are managed, even in the design of such quintessentially democratic spaces as legislative assemblies. The book offers an alternative vision for democratic public space, and evaluates 11 cities - from London to Tokyo - against that ideal.
Download or read book The Myth of Democratic Failure written by Donald A. Wittman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Myth of Democratic Failure, Donald A. Wittman refutes one of the cornerstone beliefs of economics and political science: that economic markets are more efficient than the processes and institutions of democratic government.
Download or read book Critical Pluralism Democratic Performance and Community Power written by Paul Schumaker and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who governs is a central question in political science. Typically, political scientists address this question by relying upon either empirical analysis, which explains existing political practices, or normative analysis, which orescribes ideal politcal practices.
Download or read book Bureaucratic Democracy written by Douglas Yates and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although everyone agrees on the need to make government work better, few understand public bureaucracy sufficiently well to offer useful suggestions, either theoretical or practical. In fact, some consider bureaucratic efficiency incompatible with democratic government. Douglas Yates places the often competing aims of efficiency and democracy in historical perspective and then presents a unique and systematic theory of the politics of bureaucracy, which he illustrates with examples from recent history and from empirical research. He argues that the United States operates under a system of "bureaucratic democracy," in which governmental decisions increasingly are made in bureaucratic settings, out of the public eye. He describes the rational, selfinterested bureaucrat as a "minimaxer," who inches forward inconspicuously, gradually accumulating larger budgets and greater power, in an atmosphere of segmented pluralism, of conflict and competition, of silent politics. To make the policy process more competitive, democratic, and open, Yates calls for strategic debate among policymakers and bureaucrats and insists that bureaucrats should give a public accounting of their significant decisions rather than bury them in incremental changes. He offers concrete proposals, applicable to federal, state, and local governments, for simplifying the now-chaotic bureaucratic policymaking system and at the same time bolstering representation and openness. This is a book for all political scientists, policymakers, government officials, and concerned citizens. It may well become a classic statement on the workings of public bureaucracy.
Download or read book Democracy and Efficiency in the Economic Enterprise written by Ugo Pagano and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-03-11 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collapse of central planning was hailed as evidence of the economic and moral superiority of capitalism over any possible alternative. The essays in this book challenge that claim. The case for more democratic forms of enterprise management is considered from a variety of viewpoints. One chapter deals with the philosophical justification for enterprise democracy. The remaining chapters are devoted to the question of efficiency, which has been central to economic debates about ownership and control. The orthodox belief amongst economists is that any shift to more democratic forms of enterprise control would be unworkable. The essays in this book provide a thorough theoretical and empirical critique of this orthodoxy.
Download or read book Democratic Governance and Economic Performance written by Dino Falaschetti and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional wisdom warns that unaccountable political and business agents can enrich a few at the expense of many. But logically extending this wisdom implies that associated principals – voters, consumers, shareholders – will favor themselves over the greater good when ‘rules of the game’ instead create too much accountability. Democratic Governance and Economic Performance rigorously develops this hypothesis, and finds statistical evidence and case study illustrations that democratic institutions at various governance levels (e.g., federal, state, corporation) have facilitated opportunistic gains for electoral, consumer, and shareholder principals. To be sure, this conclusion does not dismiss the potential for democratic governance to productively reduce agency costs. Rather, it suggests that policy makers, lawyers, and managers can improve governance by weighing the agency benefits of increased accountability against the distributional costs of favoring principal stakeholders over more general economic opportunities. Carefully considering the fundamentals that give rise to this tradeoff should interest students and scholars working at the intersection of social science and the law, and can help professionals improve their own performance in policy, legal, and business settings.
Download or read book Studies in Democracy written by Julia Henrietta Gulliver and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Markets and Democracy written by Samuel Bowles and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1993-07-22 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book asks whether a modern, efficient economy can be rendered democratically accountable, and, if so, what strategic changes might be required to regulate the market- based interaction of economic agents. The contributors bring contemporary microeconomic theory to bear in an attempt to find a progressive replacement to traditional state socialism. Various approaches to the study of economic interaction are considered in an attempt to understand the relationship between power and efficiency in market economies.
Download or read book Economic Efficiency democratic Empowerment written by Ingolfur Blühdorn and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Germany and Britain are two major European economies that have been trying to confront the challenges of globalisation in very different ways. Britain has favoured market liberal strategies; Germany has endeavoured to retain its tradition of consensualism and the strong welfare state. Focusing on the period since 1997/8, this book explores the controversies and struggles surrounding the agendas of social, economic, and political modernisation in the two countries. The New Labour governments in Britain and the Social Democratic coalition governments in Germany have been introducing a range of reform policies designed to reform the welfare state and increase the respective country's competitiveness in the global market. In both countries, however, these policies have triggered societal resistance. The governing parties had to confront electoral setbacks, an exodus of party members, strains on the relationship with traditional political allies, and an increasingly alienated public. Within this context, this book focuses on the tensions between two key parameters in contemporary modernisation discourses: economic efficiency and democratic renewal. Political elites in many European countries are presenting the achievement of efficiency gains as a primary objective of globalisation-induced societal reform. At the same time civic empowerment and the engagement of civil society are widely regarded as essential for increasing the quality, legitimacy, and effectiveness of public policy making. But can these two goals be achieved at the same time? What exactly does the highly contested term efficiency imply? What is its relationship towards the equally ambiguous goal of democratic renewal? Focusing on a variety of political actors, structures and strategies in Germany and Britain, the individual chapters in this book trace how the tensions between economic efficiency and democratic renewal surface, how definitional struggles surrounding these ideals are being managed, and how new syntheses between the two parameters are being forged.
Download or read book Efficient Democracy written by William Harvey Allen and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Participation and Democratic Theory written by Carole Pateman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows that current elitist theories are based on an inadequate understanding of the early writings of democratic theory and that much sociological evidence has been ignored.
Download or read book Democracy and Efficiency written by William Kent and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Rich Democracies written by Harold L. Wilensky and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002-07-01 with total page 932 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this landmark work, the culmination of 30 years of systematic, comprehensive comparison of 19 rich democracies, Wilensky answers two basic questions: (1) What is distinctly modern about modern societies--in what ways are they becoming alike? (2) How do variations in types of political economy shape system performance? He specifies similarities and differences in the structure and interplay of government, political parties, the mass media, industry, labor, professions, agriculture, churches, and voluntary associations. He then demonstrates how differences in bargaining arrangements among these groups lead to contrasting policy profiles and patterns of taxing and spending, which in turn explain a large number of outcomes: economic performance, political legitimacy, equality, job security, safety and risk, real health, the reduction of poverty and environmental threats, and the effectiveness and fairness of regulatory regimes. Drawing on quantitative data and case studies covering the last 50 years and more than 400 interviews he conducted with top decision-makers and advisors, Wilensky provides a richly detailed account of the common social, economic, and labor problems modern governments confront and their contrasting styles of conflict resolution. The result is new light on the likely paths of development of rich democracies as they become richer. Assessing alternative theories, Wilensky offers a powerful critique of such images of modern society as "post-industrial" or "high-tech," "the information age" or the alleged dominance of "globalization." Because he systematically compares all of the rich democracies with at least three million population, Wilensky can specify what is truly exceptional about the United States, what it shares with Britain and Britain abroad (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and what it shares with all or almost all of the West European democracies, Israel, and Japan. He gives careful attention to which successful social and labor policies are transferable across nations and which are not. Rich Democracies will interest both scholars and practitioners. It combines the perspectives of political economy (the interplay of markets and politics) and political sociology (the social bases of politics). It will be especially useful in courses on comparative political economy, comparative politics, European politics, public policy, political sociology, the welfare state, American government, advanced industrial societies, and industrial relations.
Download or read book Democratic Federalism written by Robert P. Inman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-26 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Federalism, defined generally as a collection of self-governing regions under a central government, is widely viewed as a sensible choice of polity both for emerging democracies and for established states. But while federal institutions are positively correlated with valued economic, democratic, and justice outcomes, ultimately it is unclear how they are connected and which cause which. In Democratic Federalism, Robert Inman and Daniel Rubinfeld explore how federalism works and propose concrete and proven policy guidance on how federalist policies can be designed and implemented successfully. The authors define federalism according to three parameters: how much federal revenue comes through local governmental bodies, the number of local governmental bodies, and the extent to which these local bodies are represented federally. In applying these parameters to economic concepts and theory, Inman and Rubinfeld explain how federalism works in a way meant to engage scholars in political science and sociology and policymakers drafting regulation in federalist governments. The book offers applicable ideas and comparative case studies on how to assess potential policies and how to actually design federalist institutions from scratch. Both authors have real experience with both, most notably in their work advising the South African government on how to build a federalist democracy. This book will be an essential guide to understanding and applying federalist concepts and principles"--
Download or read book The Handbook of Dewey s Educational Theory and Practice written by Charles L. Lowery and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-08-05 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Dewey’s Educational Theory and Practice provides a comprehensive, accessible, richly theoretical yet practical guide to the educational theories, ideals, and pragmatic implications of the work of John Dewey, America’s preeminent philosopher of education.
