Download or read book Diminished Democracy written by Theda Skocpol and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pundits and social observers have voiced alarm each year as fewer Americans involve themselves in voluntary groups that meet regularly. Thousands of nonprofit groups have been launched in recent times, but most are run by professionals who lobby Congress or deliver social services to clients. What will happen to U.S. democracy if participatory groups and social movements wither, while civic involvement becomes one more occupation rather than every citizens right and duty? In Diminished Democracy, Theda Skocpol shows that this decline in public involvement has not always been the case in this countryand how, by understanding the causes of this change, we might reverse it.
Download or read book Taxing Wars written by Sarah Elizabeth Kreps and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Why have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq lasted longer than any others in American history? One view is that the move to an all-volunteer force and drones have allowed the wars to continue almost unnoticed for years. Taxing Wars suggests how Americans bear the burden in treasure has also changed, with recent wars financed by debt rather than taxes. This shift has eroded accountability and contributed to the phenomenon of perpetual war"--
Download or read book Rethinking Democracy written by Leo Panitch and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For years, intellectuals have argued that, with the triumph of capitalist, liberal democracy, the Western World has reached “the end of history.” Recently, however, there has been a rise of authoritarian politics in many countries. Concepts of post-democracy, anti-politics, and the like are gaining currency in theoretical and political debate. Now that capitalist democracies are facing seismic and systemic challenges, it becomes increasingly important to investigate not only the inherent antagonism between liberalism and the democratic process, but also socialism. Is socialism an enemy of democracy? Could socialism develop, expand, even enhance democracy? While this volume seeks a reappraisal of existing liberal democracy today, its main goal is to help lay the foundation for new visions and practices in developing a real socialist democracy. Amid the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism today, the responsibility to sort out the relationship between socialism and democracy has never been greater. No revival of socialist politics in the twenty-first century can occur without founding new democratic institutions and practices.
Download or read book The People Vs Democracy written by Yascha Mounk and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uiteenzetting over de opkomst van het populisme en het gevaar daarvan voor de democratie.
Download or read book Rethinking Democracy written by Rajni Kothari and published by Orient Blackswan. This book was released on 2005 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethinking Democracy is an insightful and reflective monograph on democracy in general and Indian democracy in particular. In this work, Rajni Kothari revisits the core arguments he has laid down in his various writings in the past four decades Politics in India, State Against Democracy, Communalism in India, etc. While revisiting his writings, Kothari reflects, interrogates and even contests some of his earlier formulations on democracy, state and civil society, developing a new paradigm on the basis of his intellectual experience and activist experience. Kothari makes a powerful critique of prevailing democratic theory and practice in a changing global as well as Indian contaxt and concludes that democracy has failed to achieve its objective of human emancipation and survives merely as a dream. However, this disillusionment with democracy does not deter him from searching for an alternative model of a decentralized, participatory and emancipatory democracy.
Download or read book Democracy Inside written by Albert W. Dzur and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our current era of deep distrust in our politics and political institutions, there is also a pervasive sense that social problems are so overwhelmingly complex that it is virtually impossible to solve them. In Democracy Inside, Albert W. Dzur looks at recent instances of effective citizen action across the United States to develop a grounded political theory of democratic change, one in which citizens effectively engage with institutions. Drawing on qualitative interviews with practitioners involved in democratic schools, restorative and community justice, and collaborative city governance, Dzur stresses that we need to turn to ordinary, daily life and focus on how "democratic professionals" are breaking down barriers and bring people into decision-making processes at the granular level. These reformers are not transforming high politics or national-scale institutions, but they have been effective at changing the routine, everyday practices where people live and work. As Democracy Inside shows, if we really want to expand the democracy and build citizen engagement intensity in American life, we need to look beyond traditional politics and transform our classrooms, courtrooms, and offices into accessible civic spaces.
Download or read book Investing in Democracy written by Carmen Sirianni and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Discusses how government can serve as a partner and catalyst for collaborative problem solving. Details three success stories and explains what measures were taken and why they succeeded. Distills eight core design principles that characterize effectivecollaborative governance and concludes with concrete recommendations for federal policy"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Soldiers to Citizens written by Suzanne Mettler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-15 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A hell of a gift, an opportunity." "Magnanimous." "One of the greatest advantages I ever experienced." These are the voices of World War II veterans, lavishing praise on their beloved G.I. Bill. Transcending boundaries of class and race, the Bill enabled a sizable portion of the hallowed "greatest generation" to gain vocational training or to attend college or graduate school at government expense. Its beneficiaries had grown up during the Depression, living in tenements and cold-water flats, on farms and in small towns across the nation, most of them expecting that they would one day work in the same kinds of jobs as their fathers. Then the G.I. Bill came along, and changed everything. They experienced its provisions as inclusive, fair, and tremendously effective in providing the deeply held American value of social opportunity, the chance to improve one's circumstances. They become chefs and custom builders, teachers and electricians, engineers and college professors.But the G.I. Bill fueled not only the development of the middle class: it also revitalized American democracy. Americans who came of age during World War II joined fraternal groups and neighborhood and community organizations and took part in politics at rates that made the postwar era the twentieth century's civic "golden age." Drawing on extensive interviews and surveys with hundreds of members of the "greatest generation," Suzanne Mettler finds that by treating veterans as first-class citizens and in granting advanced education, the Bill inspired them to become the active participants thanks to whom memberships in civic organizations soared and levels of political activity peaked.Mettler probes how this landmark law produced such a civic renaissance. Most fundamentally, she discovers, it communicated to veterans that government was for and about people like them, and they responded in turn. In our current age of rising inequality and declining civic engagement, Soldiers to Citizens offers critical lessons about how public programs can make a difference.
Download or read book The United States in Decline written by Richard Lachmann and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-23 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume examine finance, industry and strategy both internally and on a global scale. Contributors clarify our understanding of the current state and future trajectory of the United States and the effect of decline on its citizens and the world.
Download or read book Democracy Diminished written by Thurgood Marshall Institute at LDF and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Democratic Decay and Authoritarian Resurgence written by Natasha Lindstaedt and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on real-world developments, and including international case studies, this book introduces students to the concept and causes of democratic decay in the modern world.
Download or read book Interactive Democracy written by Carol C. Gould and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-21 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Carol C. Gould proposes an integrative approach to the core values of democracy, justice, and human rights, looking beyond traditional politics to the social conditions that would realize them. It is of interest to scholars and students of political philosophy, global justice, social and political science, and gender studies.
Download or read book The Consolidation of Democracy written by Carsten Q. Schneider and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-11-19 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the successes and failures in consolidating those democratic regimes that emerged in Europe and Latin America in the last quarter of the 20th century. The theoretical approach developed combines the most prominent political-institutional and socio-structural approaches to explaining the Consolidation of Democracy (CoD). Reinterpreting conventional claims, Schneider’s comparative analyses of 32 countries indicates that the driving force behind CoD is the fit between the institutional type of democracy and the societal context in terms of power dispersion. This book: presents new data measuring dimensions of regime transition processes in Latin America, the Middle East and Northern Africa, as well as some former Soviet republics; reassesses some core assumptions of the dominant transition paradigm; discusses general methodological issues involved when investigating causally complex claims in comparative social research and presents fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) as a valuable addition to the methodological tool kit of comparative social scientists. This innovative and important volume will be of interest to political scientists, particularly those with an interest in democracy, democratization, comparative politics and comparative methodology.
Download or read book Overdoing Democracy written by Robert B. Talisse and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "'The cure for democracy's ills is more democracy.' This popular adage is false. Contemporary democracy faces problems that derive from the tendency among citizens to overdo democracy. In this book, Robert Talisse argues that even in a democracy, politics must be put in its place"--
Download or read book Democracy and Transparency in the Indian State written by Prashant Sharma and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The enactment of the national Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2005 has been produced, consumed, and celebrated as an important event of democratic deepening in India both in terms of the process that led to its enactment (arising from a grassroots movement) and its outcome (fundamentally altering the citizen--state relationship). This book proposes that the explanatory factors underlying this event may be more complex than imagined thus far. The book discusses how the leadership of the grassroots movement was embedded within the ruling elite and possessed the necessary resources as well as unparalleled access to spaces of power for the movement to be successful. It shows how the democratisation of the higher bureaucracy along with the launch of the economic liberalisation project meant that the urban, educated, high-caste, upper-middle class elite that provided critical support to the demand for an RTI Act was no longer vested in the state and had moved to the private sector. Mirroring this shift, the framing of the RTI Act during the 1990s saw its ambit reduced to the government, even as there was a concomitant push to privatise public goods and services. It goes on to investigate the Indian RTI Act within the global explosion of freedom of information laws over the last two decades, and shows how international pressures had a direct and causal impact both on its content and the timing of its enactment. Taking the production of the RTI Act as a lens, the book argues that while there is much to celebrate in the consolidation of procedural democracy in India over the last six decades, existing social and political structures may limit the extent and forms of democratic deepening occurring in the near future. It will be of interest to those working in the fields of South Asian Law, Asian Politics, and Civil Society.
Download or read book Israel s Regime Untangled written by Gal Ariely and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forging an innovative path to untangling the conflicting interpretations of the Israeli regime, this book examines at the diverse aspects of the regime to determine the level of 'democraticness' exhibited in order to come to its conclusion.
Download or read book Democracy and Expertise written by Frank Fischer and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-03-12 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the role of policy expertise in a democratic society. From the perspectives of both political theory and policy studies, the chapters explore the implications of deliberative democratic governance for professional expertise and extends them to specific policy practices. Following the lead of John Dewey, the discussion focuses in particular on the ways professional practices might be reoriented to assist citizens in understanding and discussing the complex policy issues of an advanced technological society. In doing so, it also explores how public deliberation can be improved through more cooperative forms of policy inquiry. Adopting a deliberative-analytic approach , policy inquiry is grounded in a postempiricist, constructivist understanding of inquiry and knowledge and the participatory practices that support it. Toward this end, the chapters draw on thriving theoretical and practical work dedicated to revitalizing the citizen's role in both civil society and newer practices of democratic governance, in particular deliberative democracy in political theory, practical work with deliberative experiments, the theory and practices of democratic governance, and participatory research. Deliberative practices are promoted here as a new component part of policy-related disciplines required for participatory governance. Calling for a specialization of "policy epistemics" to advance such practices, the second half of the book takes up issues related to deliberative empowerment, including the relation of technical and social knowledge, the interpretive dimensions of social meaning and multiple realities, the role of narrative knowledge and storylines policy inquiry, social learning, tacit knowledge, the design of discursive spaces, and the place of emotional expression in public deliberation.
