Download or read book From Autocracy to Democracy to Technocracy written by Victor N. Shaw and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores human polity with respect to its nature, context, and evolution. Specifically, it examines how individual wills translate into political ideologies, investigates what social forces converge to shape governmental operations, and probes whether human polity progresses in focus from individual wills to group interests to social integrations. The book entertains five hypotheses. The first is commonsensical: where there are people there is politics. The second is analogous: humans govern themselves socially in a way that is comparable to how a body regulates itself physically. The third is rational: humans set rules, organize activities, and establish institutions upon facts, following reasons, for the purpose of effectiveness and efficiency. The fourth is random: human affairs take place haphazardly under specific circumstances while they overall exhibit general patterns and trends. The final hypothesis is inevitable: human governance evolves from autocracy to democracy to technocracy. The book presents systematic information about human polity, its form, content, operation, impact, and evolution. It sheds light on multivariate interactions among human wills, rights, and obligations, political thoughts, actions, and mechanisms, and social structures, processes, and order maintenances. Pragmatically, it offers invaluable insights into individuals as agents, groupings as agencies, and polity as structuration across the human sphere.
Download or read book Scientism and Technocracy in the Twentieth Century written by Richard G. Olson and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-12-16 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientism, or the application of methods, attitudes, and concepts drawn from the natural sciences to human activities and social policy formation, is a pervasive feature of modern life, and it is one which has immense impact upon virtually all aspects of our private and public lives. This work explores the impact of Scientific Management, a movement initiated at the beginning of the twentieth century by the mechanical engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor, in spreading scientistic attitudes through its appropriation by technical experts (technocrats) who have played a central and growing role in formulating public policies, not just in the United States, but throughout the world. It explores the movement of Scientific Management out of its initial American industrial context into progressive politics in the United States, into the policies of the Third Reich, those of the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, into Cold War policy formation in both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R , and into those of contemporary China and the European Union, with short but important excursions into France, Sweden, Japan, and the developing world. Moreover it also explores some of the aesthetic dimensions of scientism and technocracy, especially as they have been reflected in modernist architecture and literature, and it examines current trends in education and the structure of advisory organizations such as RAND Corporation which are shaping the character and impact of scientistic and technocratic attitudes. Overall the approach is ambivalent toward scientism, acknowledging some of its great strengths in promoting economic growth and providing advice on security related issues, but offering criticisms of its narrow emphasis on efficiency, its insensitivity to qualitative considerations and the experience of those with specialized local knowledge, and its long term tendency to ignore distributive justice and promote income concentration.
Download or read book Technopopulism written by Christopher J. Bickerton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021-02-25 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about a contemporary transformation in democratic politics: the rise of a new political field, techno-populism.
Download or read book Why Bother With Elections written by Adam Przeworski and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the collapse of traditional parties around the world and with many pundits predicting a "crisis of democracy", the value of elections as a method for selecting by whom and how we are governed is being questioned. What are the virtues and weaknesses of elections? Are there limitations to what they can realistically achieve? In this deeply informed book world-renowned democratic theorist Adam Przeworski offers a warts-and-all analysis of elections and the ways in which they affect our lives. Elections, he argues, are inherently imperfect but they remain the least bad way of choosing our rulers. According to Przeworski, the greatest value of elections, by itself sufficient to cherish them, is that they process whatever conflicts may arise in society in a way that maintains relative liberty and peace. Whether they succeed in doing so in today's turbulent political climate remains to be seen.
Download or read book Democracy in Spite of the Demos written by Larry Alan Busk and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-02-14 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The value of democracy is taken for granted today, even by those interested in criticizing the fundamental structures of society. Things would be better, the argument goes, if only things were more democratic. The word “democracy” means “the power of the people,” and scholars with a critical and progressive outlook often invoke this meaning as a way of justifying the honorific status accorded to the term: the power of the people to resist racism, sexism, imperialism, climate change, etc. But if the people have the power to resist these structures of domination and inequality, they also have the power to reinforce them. By treating democracy as an end in itself, political theorists of a critical bent overwhelmingly assume that the demos, if given the opportunity, will advance progressive or even radical politics. But given the recent successes of right-wing populism, and the persistence of pathological views such as climate skepticism, is this assumption still warranted? If not, then can democracy really save us?
Download or read book Technocracy and Democracy in Latin America written by Eduardo Dargent and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised by some as islands of efficiency in a sea of unprofessional, politicized, and corrupt states, and criticized by others for removing wide areas of policy making from the democratic arena, technocrats have become prominent and controversial actors in Latin American politics. Through an in-depth analysis of economic and health policy in Colombia from 1958 to 2011 and in Peru from 1980 to 2011, Technocracy and Democracy in Latin America explains the source of these experts' power as well as the leverage they have across state policy sectors in Latin America.
Download or read book Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa written by Tobias Hagmann and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2013 almost half of Africa's top aid recipients were ruled by authoritarian regimes. While the West may claim to promote democracy and human rights, in practice major bilateral and international donors, such as USAID, DFID, the World Bank and the European Commission, have seen their aid policies become ever more entangled with the survival of their authoritarian protégés. Local citizens thus find themselves at the receiving end of a compromise between aid agencies and government elites, in which development policies are shaped in the interests of maintaining the status quo. Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa sheds light on the political intricacies and moral dilemmas raised by the relationship between foreign aid and autocratic rule in Africa. Through contributions by leading experts exploring the revival of authoritarian development politics in Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Cameroon, Mozambique and Angola, the book exposes shifting donor interests and rhetoric as well as the impact of foreign aid on military assistance, rural development, electoral processes and domestic politics. In the process, it raises an urgent and too often neglected question: to what extent are foreign aid programmes actually perpetuating authoritarian rule?
Download or read book Technocracy and the American Dream written by William E. Akin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1977 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study focuses on the genesis and development of the Technocrats' philosophy, and describes the movement's initial popularity in 1932 abd 1933, and its rapid decline as a result of the Technocrats' failure to develop a political philosophy which could reconcile their technological aristocracy with democracy.
Download or read book The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium written by Martin Gurri and published by Stripe Press. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How insurgencies—enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere—have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.
Download or read book The Politics written by Aristotle and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 1981-09-17 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-three centuries after its compilation, 'The Politics' still has much to contribute to this central question of political science. Aristotle's thorough and carefully argued analysis is based on a study of over 150 city constitutions, covering a huge range of political issues in order to establish which types of constitution are best - both ideally and in particular circumstances - and how they may be maintained. Aristotle's opinions form an essential background to the thinking of philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli and Jean Bodin and both his premises and arguments raise questions that are as relevant to modern society as they were to the ancient world.
Download or read book The New Technocracy written by Esmark, Anders and published by Bristol University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-08 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, this book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines the development since the 1980s of a new 'post-industrial' technocratic regime and its complicity in the populist backlash against politics and political elites that is visible today. The new technocracy – a combination of network governance, risk management and performance management – has, the author argues, abandoned the overtly anti-democratic sentiments of its industrial predecessor and proclaimed a new partnership with democracy. The rise of populism, however, is a clear sign that the inherent problems of this partnership have been exposed and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exacerbate existing problems.
Download or read book The Tyranny of Experts written by William Easterly and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this "bracingly iconoclastic” book (New York Times Book Review), a renowned economics scholar breaks down the fight to end global poverty and the rights that poor individuals have had taken away for generations. In The Tyranny of Experts, renowned economist William Easterly examines our failing efforts to fight global poverty, and argues that the "expert approved" top-down approach to development has not only made little lasting progress, but has proven a convenient rationale for decades of human rights violations perpetrated by colonialists, postcolonial dictators, and US and UK foreign policymakers seeking autocratic allies. Demonstrating how our traditional antipoverty tactics have both trampled the freedom of the world's poor and suppressed a vital debate about alternative approaches to solving poverty, Easterly presents a devastating critique of the blighted record of authoritarian development. In this masterful work, Easterly reveals the fundamental errors inherent in our traditional approach and offers new principles for Western agencies and developing countries alike: principles that, because they are predicated on respect for the rights of poor people, have the power to end global poverty once and for all.
Download or read book Militant Democracy written by András Sajó and published by Eleven International Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of contributions by leading scholars on theoretical and contemporary problems of militant democracy. The term 'militant democracy' was first coined in 1937. In a militant democracy preventive measures are aimed, at least in practice, at restricting people who would openly contest and challenge democratic institutions and fundamental preconditions of democracy like secularism - even though such persons act within the existing limits of, and rely on the rights offered by, democracy. In the shadow of the current wars on terrorism, which can also involve rights restrictions, the overlapping though distinct problem of militant democracy seems to be lost, notwithstanding its importance for emerging and established democracies. This volume will be of particular significance outside the German-speaking world, since the bulk of the relevant literature on militant democracy is in the German language. The book is of interest to academics in the field of law, political studies and constitutionalism.
Download or read book Authoritarian Neoliberalism written by Ian Bruff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authoritarian Neoliberalism explores how neoliberal forms of managing capitalism are challenging democratic governance at local, national and international levels. Identifying a spectrum of policies and practices that seek to reproduce neoliberalism and shield it from popular and democratic contestation, contributors provide original case studies that investigate the legal-administrative, social, coercive and corporate dimensions of authoritarian neoliberalism across the global North and South. They detail the crisis-ridden intertwinement of authoritarian statecraft and neoliberal reforms, and trace the transformation of key societal sites in capitalism (e.g. states, households, workplaces, urban spaces) through uneven yet cumulative processes of neoliberalization. Informed by innovative conceptual and methodological approaches, Authoritarian Neoliberalism uncovers how inequalities of power are produced and reproduced in capitalist societies, and highlights how alternatives to neoliberalism can be formulated and pursued. The book was originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.
Download or read book Life in a Technocracy written by Harold Loeb and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 1996-06-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The origins of technocracy are shrouded in controversy, but most of its leaders were inspired by their association with the social critic Thorstein Veblen, between 1919 and 1921. Harold Loeb, an expatriate in Paris in the 1920s, was one of the more accomplished and interesting of the technocrats. In Life in a Technocracy, now a twentieth-century utopian classic, he expounds on the merits of creating a utopian society through technocracy, predicting the future of art, education, religion, and government under the leadership of technical professionals.
Download or read book EU Law in Populist Times written by Francesca Bignami and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-02 with total page 611 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A state-of-the-art analysis of the contentious areas of EU law that have been put in the spotlight by populism.
Download or read book Demopolis written by Josiah Ober and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-20 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did democracy mean before liberalism? What are the consequences for our lives today? These questions are examined by this book.
