Download or read book The East Asian Challenge for Democracy written by Daniel A. Bell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-12 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of China, along with problems of governance in democratic countries, has reinvigorated the theory of political meritocracy. But what is the theory of political meritocracy and how can it set standards for evaluating political progress (and regress)? To help answer these questions, this volume gathers a series of commissioned research papers from an interdisciplinary group of leading philosophers, historians and social scientists. The result is the first book in decades to examine the rise (or revival) of political meritocracy and what it will mean for political developments in China and the rest of the world. Despite its limitations, meritocracy has contributed much to human flourishing in East Asia and beyond and will continue to do so in the future. This book is essential reading for those who wish to further the debate and perhaps even help to implement desirable forms of political change.

Download or read book The China Model written by Daniel A. Bell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How China's political model could prove to be a viable alternative to Western democracy Westerners tend to divide the political world into "good" democracies and “bad” authoritarian regimes. But the Chinese political model does not fit neatly in either category. Over the past three decades, China has evolved a political system that can best be described as “political meritocracy.” The China Model seeks to understand the ideals and the reality of this unique political system. How do the ideals of political meritocracy set the standard for evaluating political progress (and regress) in China? How can China avoid the disadvantages of political meritocracy? And how can political meritocracy best be combined with democracy? Daniel Bell answers these questions and more. Opening with a critique of “one person, one vote” as a way of choosing top leaders, Bell argues that Chinese-style political meritocracy can help to remedy the key flaws of electoral democracy. He discusses the advantages and pitfalls of political meritocracy, distinguishes between different ways of combining meritocracy and democracy, and argues that China has evolved a model of democratic meritocracy that is morally desirable and politically stable. Bell summarizes and evaluates the “China model”—meritocracy at the top, experimentation in the middle, and democracy at the bottom—and its implications for the rest of the world. A timely and original book that will stir up interest and debate, The China Model looks at a political system that not only has had a long history in China, but could prove to be the most important political development of the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Meritocratic Democracy written by Elena Ziliotti and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-29 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meritocratic Democracy examines the effectiveness of democracy as a decision-making system, the role of political leaders and political parties in real-world democracies and shows that cross-cultural dialogue is imperative to generate innovative solutions to pressing political issues and foster reciprocal corrections.

Download or read book Political Meritocracy and Populism written by Mark Chou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-13 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering the first in-depth analysis of the relationship between populism and political meritocracy, this book asks why states with meritocratic systems such as Singapore and China have not faced the populist challenge to the extent that liberal-democratic states have. Is political meritocracy immune to populism? Or does it fan its flames? Exploring this puzzle, the authors argue that political meritocracies are simultaneously immune and susceptible to populism. The book maintains that political meritocracy’s focus on the intellect, social skills, and most importantly virtue of political leaders can reduce the likelihood of populist actors rising to power; that meritocracy’s promise of upward mobility for the masses can work against elitism; and that rule by the ‘meritorious’ can help avoid crises, diminishing the political opening for populism. However, it also shows that meritocracy does little to eliminate grievances around political, cultural, and social inequality, instead entrenching a hierarchy – an allegedly ‘just’ one. The book ultimately argues that the more established the system of political meritocracy becomes, the more it opens the door to populist resentment and revolt. Pitched primarily to scholars and postgraduate students in political theory, comparative politics, Asian studies, and political sociology, this book fills an important scholarly gap.

Download or read book The Tyranny of Merit written by Michael J. Sandel and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Times Literary Supplement’s Book of the Year 2020 A New Statesman's Best Book of 2020 A Bloomberg's Best Book of 2020 A Guardian Best Book About Ideas of 2020 The world-renowned philosopher and author of the bestselling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the American credo that "you can make it if you try". The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization, and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens--leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time. World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success--more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.

Download or read book Diploma Democracy written by Mark Bovens and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-23 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lay politics lies at the heart of democracy. Political offices are the only offices for which no formal qualifications are required. Contemporary political practices are diametrically opposed to this constitutional ideal. Most democracies in Western Europe are diploma democracies - ruled by those with the highest formal qualifications. Citizens with low or medium educational qualifications currently make up about 70 percent of the electorates, yet they have become virtually absent from almost all political arenas. University graduates have come to dominate all political institutions and venues, from political parties, parliaments and cabinets, to organised interests, deliberative settings, and Internet consultations. This rise of a political meritocracy is part of larger trend. In the information society, educational background, like class or religion, is an important source of social and political divides. Those who are well educated tend to be cosmopolitans, whereas the lesser educated citizens are more likely to be nationalists. This book documents the context, contours, and consequences of this rise of a political meritocracy. It explores the domination of higher educated citizens in political participation, civil society, and political office in Western Europe. It discusses the consequences of this rise of a political meritocracy, such as descriptive deficits, policy incongruences, biased standards, and cynicism and distrust. Also, it looks at ways to remedy, or at least mitigate, some of the negative effects of diploma democracy.

Download or read book The Meritocracy Trap written by Daniel Markovits and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the false promise of meritocracy It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal – that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding – reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream. But what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy’s successes. This is the radical argument that Daniel Markovits prosecutes with rare force. Markovits is well placed to expose the sham of meritocracy. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within. Markovits also knows that, if we understand that meritocratic inequality produces near-universal harm, we can cure it. When The Meritocracy Trap reveals the inner workings of the meritocratic machine, it also illuminates the first steps outward, towards a new world that might once again afford dignity and prosperity to the American people.

Download or read book The Democratic Outcome State written by Boon Choo and published by Partridge Publishing Singapore. This book was released on 2020-03-11 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic Outcome State – Political Meritocracy and The Tyranny of Consent Distilling history, this book now poses an epochal challenge. Is Political Meritocracy the universal solution that Liberal Democracy is not? All men are not equal and never will be. Yet, democracy’s poetic lie on “self-evident truth that all men are created equal” has universal acceptance. Its Calvinist origins have transmuted spiritual equality into equality of consent in the government of man The outcome of democratic rule the world over has been anything but democratic! The Chinese, with their meritocratic traditions, have not been bound by this leap of logic. However, a century and a half of decline had rendered its history of the meritocratic rule to a distant memory. It would be descendants of landless peasants in the tiny state of Singapore that would play unwitting roles in the restoration of Political Meritocracy and the rise of the Chinese nation. This book unravels the conventional narratives of East Asian economic miracles revealing surprising political meritocracies. The outcomes of these political meritocracies would turn out to be far more democratic than those of liberal democracies. Boon Choo’s work will be controversial, but his arguments will reset many minds on long-held convictions.

Download or read book The East Asian Challenge for Democracy written by Daniel A. Bell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-12 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of China, along with problems of governance in democratic countries, has reinvigorated the theory of political meritocracy. But what is the theory of political meritocracy and how can it set standards for evaluating political progress (and regress)? To help answer these questions, this volume gathers a series of commissioned research papers from an interdisciplinary group of leading philosophers, historians and social scientists. The result is the first book in decades to examine the rise (or revival) of political meritocracy and what it will mean for political developments in China and the rest of the world. Despite its limitations, meritocracy has contributed much to human flourishing in East Asia and beyond and will continue to do so in the future. This book is essential reading for those who wish to further the debate and perhaps even help to implement desirable forms of political change.

Download or read book Diploma Democracy written by M. A. P. Bovens and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume dissects the rise of a political meritocracy and its consequences for democracy and the political landscape.

Download or read book Time to End Democracy written by Abhijit Naskar and published by Vicdansaadet Publishing. This book was released on with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We can take the revolutionary leap from democracy to meritocracy right now - dissolve the government and all political offices, and keep the departments that actually run a nation anyways." The humanitarian scientist Abhijit Naskar delivers us a vision of a civilized society where values and character dictate the affairs of society, not law and politics. Like always, as a gentle brother, Naskar reveals the path to a humane world beyond democracy founded upon merit.

Download or read book Meritocracy and Americans Views on Distributive Justice written by Richard T. Longoria and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on public opinion on issues related to the theory of meritocracy. It employs survey data from a variety of sources in an attempt to understand public sentiments, highlighting the contradictory nature of American public opinion and questioning the belief that Americans fully embrace the meritocratic ethos.

Download or read book The Case for Meritocracy written by Michael Faust and published by Magus Books. This book was released on with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human societies have always been ruled by military elites, Mythos elites (religious or royal), or rich elites. They have never been ruled by intellectual elites. Humanity could be saved by knowledge, understanding, reason and logic, but these have always been despised by the average person. Intellectual attributes have never played a decisive role in human affairs. The intelligentsia have always been advisers, and never those occupying the throne and taking the decisions. What would happen to the world if Logos people rather than Mythos people were in charge, if smart people rather than military people were in charge, if people of knowledge ruled rather than people of wealth? The world would be transformed. Humanity would undergo a wondrous metamorphosis. A political system exists that can deliver this New World Order... a world where intelligence becomes the most valued resource. It's called Meritocracy.

Download or read book Confucian Democracy in East Asia written by Sungmoon Kim and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confucian Democracy in East Asia explores the unique Confucian reasoning that still exists in much of East Asian culture.

Download or read book Twilight of the Elites written by Chris Hayes and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful and original argument that traces the roots of our present crisis of authority to an unlikely source: the meritocracy. Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters. How did we get here? With Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite--one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it. Mixing deft political analysis, timely social commentary, and deep historical understanding, Twilight of the Elites describes how the society we have come to inhabit – utterly forgiving at the top and relentlessly punitive at the bottom – produces leaders who are out of touch with the people they have been trusted to govern. Hayes argues that the public's failure to trust the federal government, corporate America, and the media has led to a crisis of authority that threatens to engulf not just our politics but our day-to-day lives. Upending well-worn ideological and partisan categories, Hayes entirely reorients our perspective on our times. Twilight of the Elites is the defining work of social criticism for the post-bailout age.

Download or read book The Aristocracy of Talent written by Adrian Wooldridge and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Times (UK) book of the year! Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their birth. While this initially seemed like a novel concept, by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left? In The Aristocracy of Talent, esteemed journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians and officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities, and the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures and shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocratic system. Wooldridge also shows how meritocracy has now become corrupted and argues that the recent stalling of social mobility is the result of failure to complete the meritocratic revolution. Rather than abandoning meritocracy, he says, we should call for its renewal.

Download or read book After Democracy written by Zizi Papacharissi and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do ordinary citizens really want from their governments? Democracy has long been considered an ideal state of governance. What if it’s not? Perhaps it is not the end goal but, rather, a transition stage to something better. Drawing on original interviews conducted with citizens of more than thirty countries, Zizi Papacharissi explores what democracy is, what it means to be a citizen, and what can be done to enhance governance. As she probes the ways governments can better serve their citizens and evolve in positive ways, Papacharissi gives a voice to everyday people, whose ideas and experiences of capitalism, media, and education can help shape future governing practices. This book expands on the well-known difficulties of realizing the intimacy of democracy in a global world—the “democratic paradox”—and presents a concrete vision of how communications technologies can be harnessed to implement representative equality, information equality, and civic literacy.