Download or read book Democracy Minorities and International Law written by Steven Wheatley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-12-22 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work explores the contribution that international law may make to the resolution of culture conflicts--political disputes between the members of different ethno-cultural groups--in democratic States. International law recognizes that persons belonging to minorities have the right to enjoy their own culture and peoples have the right to self-determination without detailing how these principles are to be put into effect. The emergence of democracy as a legal obligation of States permits the international community to concern itself with both the procedure and substance of 'democratic' decisions concerning ethno-cultural groups.

Download or read book Direct Democracy and Minority Rights written by Daniel Lewis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-04 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book conclusively demonstrates that direct democracy—institutions like the ballot initiative and the referendum—endangers the rights of minorities and perpetuates a tyranny of the majority. While advocates of direct democracy advocate that these institutions protect citizens from corrupt lawmakers beholden to special interests, Daniel Lewis’s thorough investigation shows how such mass participation exposes minority groups to negative policy outcomes favored by only a slim majority of voters. Some would argue that greater democratic responsiveness is a positive outcome, but without the checks and balances of a representative, separated powers system that encourages deliberation and minority representation, minority rights are at increased risk under direct democracy institutions. While research has been presented that supports both sides of the debate, the existing literature has yet to produce consistent and compelling evidence in favor of one side or the other. This book undertakes a comprehensive examination of the "tyranny of the majority" critique of direct democracy by examining a host of contemporary American state policies that affect the rights of a variety of minority groups. By assessing the impact of direct democracy on both ballot measures and traditional legislation, the book provides a more complete picture of how citizen legislative institutions can affect minority rights, covering a myriad of contemporary (and sometimes controversial) minority rights issues, including same-sex marriage, affirmative action, official English, hate crimes laws, racial profiling, and anti-discrimination laws. The book is unique in its approach and scope, making it compelling for scholars interested in direct democracy, state politics, minority politics and electoral institutions, as well as American politics generally.

Download or read book Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy written by Kyle G. Volk and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should the majority always rule? If not, how should the rights of minorities be protected? In Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy, Kyle G. Volk unearths the origins of modern ideas and practices of minority-rights politics. Focusing on controversies spurred by the explosion of grassroots moral reform in the early nineteenth century, he shows how a motley but powerful array of self-understood minorities reshaped American democracy as they battled laws regulating Sabbath observance, alcohol, and interracial contact. Proponents justified these measures with the "democratic" axiom of majority rule. In response, immigrants, black northerners, abolitionists, liquor dealers, Catholics, Jews, Seventh-day Baptists, and others articulated a different vision of democracy requiring the protection of minority rights. These moral minorities prompted a generation of Americans to reassess whether "majority rule" was truly the essence of democracy, and they ensured that majority tyranny would no longer be just the fear of elites and slaveholders. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth-century, minority rights became the concern of a wide range of Americans attempting to live in an increasingly diverse nation. Volk reveals that driving this vast ideological reckoning was the emergence of America's tradition of popular minority-rights politics. To challenge hostile laws and policies, moral minorities worked outside of political parties and at the grassroots. They mobilized elite and ordinary people to form networks of dissent and some of America's first associations dedicated to the protection of minority rights. They lobbied officials and used constitutions and the common law to initiate "test cases" before local and appellate courts. Indeed, the moral minorities of the mid-nineteenth century pioneered fundamental methods of political participation and legal advocacy that subsequent generations of civil-rights and civil-liberties activists would adopt and that are widely used today.

Download or read book Diversity in Democracy written by Gary M. Segura and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2006-08-14 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the racial and ethnic minority populations of the United States grow past 30 percent, candidates cannot afford to ignore the minority vote. The studies collected in Diversity and Democracy show that political scientists, too, must fully recognize the significance of minority-representation studies for our understanding of the electoral process in general. If anything has limited such inquiry in the past, it has been the tendency for researchers to address only a single group or problem, yielding little that can be applied to other contexts. Diversity in Democracy avoids this limitation by examining several aspects of representation, including both Latino and African American perspectives, and a wide range of topics, ranging from the dynamics of partisanship to various groups' perceptions of the political system. The result is a work that pulls together decades of disparate work into a broad and cohesive overview of minority representation. The most significant conclusion to emerge from this multifaceted examination is the overwhelming importance of context. There is no single strategic key, but taken together, these studies begin to map the strategies, institutions, and contexts that enhance or limit minority representation. In navigating the complexities of minority politics, moreover, the book reveals much about American representative democracy that pertains to all of us. Contributors Susan A. Banducci, Texas Tech University * Matt A. Barreto, University of California, Irvine * Shaun Bowler, University of California, Riverside * Todd Donovan, Western Washington University * Luis Ricardo Fraga, Stanford University * F. Chris Garcia, University of New Mexico * Elisabeth R. Gerber, University of Michigan * Stacy B. Gordon, University of Nevada, Reno * Bernard Grofman, University of California, Irvine * Zoltan L. Hajnal, University of California, San Diego * Sarah Harsh, Fleishman Hillard * Rodney E. Hero, University of Notre Dame * Martin Johnson, University of California, Riverside * Jeffrey A. Karp, Texas Tech University * Hugh Louch, Cambridge Systematics * Stephen P. Nicholson, Georgia State University * Adrian D. Pantoja, Arizona State University * Gary M. Segura, University of Iowa * Katherine Tate, University of California, Irvine * Caroline J. Tolbert, Kent State University * Carole J. Uhlaner, University of California, Irvine * Nathan D. Woods, Welch Consulting

Download or read book Tyranny of the Minority written by Steven Levitsky and published by Crown. This book was released on 2023-09-12 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A call to reform our antiquated political institutions before it’s too late—from the New York Times bestselling authors of How Democracies Die America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is democracy under assault here, and not in other wealthy, diversifying nations? And what can we do to save it? With the clarity and brilliance that made their first book, How Democracies Die, a global bestseller, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy. They then show how our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within: It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind. In this revelatory book, Levitsky and Ziblatt issue an urgent call to reform our politics. It’s a daunting task, but we have remade our country before—most notably, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era. And now we are at a crossroads: America will either become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy at all.

Download or read book The Challenge of Ethnic Democracy written by Yoav Peled and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethnic democracy is a form of democratic ethnic conflict regulation in deeply divided societies. In The Challenge of Ethnic Democracy, Yoav Peled argues that ethnic democracy is constituted by the combination of two contradictory constitutional principles: liberal democracy and ethno-nationalism, and that its stability depends on the existence of a third, mediating constitutional principle of whatever kind. This central argument is supported by an analysis of the history of three ethnic democracies; Northern Ireland under Unionist rule, where ethnic democracy was stable for almost 50 years (1921-1969), then collapsed; The Second Polish republic (1918-1939), where ethnic democracy was written into the constitution but was never actualised; and Israel within its pre-1967 borders, where ethnic democracy was stable for 35 years (1966-2000) but may now be eroding. This book examines the different trajectories of the case studies, demonstrating that Poland lacked a third, mediating constitutional principle, while Israel and Northern Ireland did have such a principle – civic republicanism in Israel, and populism in Northern Ireland. The collapse of ethnic democracy in Northern Ireland resulted from the weakening of populism, that depended on British monetary subsidies for its implementation, whilst the erosion of ethnic democracy in Israel resulted from the decline of civic republicanism since the onset of economic liberalization in 1985. Dealing with ethnic democracy in a comparative framework, this book will appeal to students, scholars and researchers of Sociology, Political Science and Middle East Studies.

Download or read book Linguistic Minorities in Democratic Context written by C. Williams and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-11-28 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This blends discussion of the role of language minorities in politics with examples of language policy in a range of national contexts. It discusses minority rights and language protection, the policies of the state in privileging powerful majorities, the opportunities and challenges of both devolution and globalization.

Download or read book The Loud Minority written by Daniel Q. Gillion and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How political protests and activism influence voters and candidates The “silent majority”—a phrase coined by Richard Nixon in 1969 in response to Vietnam War protests and later used by Donald Trump as a campaign slogan—refers to the supposed wedge that exists between protestors in the street and the voters at home. The Loud Minority upends this view by demonstrating that voters are in fact directly informed and influenced by protest activism. Consequently, as protests grow in America, every facet of the electoral process is touched by this loud minority, benefiting the political party perceived to be the most supportive of the protestors’ messaging. Drawing on historical evidence, statistical data, and detailed interviews about protest activity since the 1960s, Daniel Gillion shows that electoral districts with protest activity are more likely to see increased voter turnout at the polls. Surprisingly, protest activities are also moneymaking endeavors for electoral politics, as voters donate more to political candidates who share the ideological leanings of activists. Finally, protests are a signal of political problems, encouraging experienced political challengers to run for office and hurting incumbents’ chances of winning reelection. The silent majority may not speak by protesting themselves, but they clearly gesture for social change with their votes. An exploration of how protests affect voter behavior and warn of future electoral changes, The Loud Minority looks at the many ways that activism can shape democracy.

Download or read book Minorities in a Democracy written by Humayun Kabir and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Freedom is Not Enough written by Ronald W. Walters and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2005 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black voters can make or break a presidential election--look at the close electoral results in 2000 and the difference the disenfranchised Black vote in Florida alone might have made. Black candidates can influence a presidential election--look at the effect that Jesse Jackson had on the Democratic party, the platform, and the electorate in 1984 and 1988, and the contributions to the Democratic debates that Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton made in 2004. American presidential politics can't get along without the Black vote--witness the controversy over candidates' appearing (or not) at the NAACP convention, or the extent to which candidates court (or not) the Black vote in a variety of venues. It all goes back to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which formally gave African Americans the right to vote, even if after all these years that right is continuously contested. In Freedom Is Not Enough (a quote from Lyndon Johnson's 1965 commencement address to Howard University just before he signed the Voting Rights Act), Ronald W. Walters traces the history of the Black vote since 1965, celebrates its fortieth anniversary in 2005, and shows why passing a law is not the same as ensuring its enforcement, legitimacy, and opportunity.

Download or read book World on Fire written by Amy Chua and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2004-01-06 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The reigning consensus holds that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated with underdevelopment. In this revelatory investigation of the true impact of globalization, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnic violence after adopting free market democracy. Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority. These “market-dominant minorities” – Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews in post-communist Russia – become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidal revenge. She also argues that the United States has become the world’s most visible market-dominant minority, a fact that helps explain the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. Chua is a friend of globalization, but she urges us to find ways to spread its benefits and curb its most destructive aspects.

Download or read book The Struggle for Inclusion written by Elisabeth Ivarsflaten and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The politics of inclusion is about more than hate, exclusion, and discrimination. It is a window into the moral character of contemporary liberal democracies. The Struggle for Inclusion introduces a new method to the study of public opinion: to probe, step by step, how far non-Muslim majorities are willing to be inclusive, where they draw the line, and why they draw it there and not elsewhere. Those committed to liberal democratic values and their concerns are the focus, not those advocating exclusion and intolerance. Notwithstanding the turbulence and violence of the last decade over issues of immigration and of Muslims in the West, the results of this study demonstrate that the largest number of citizens in contemporary liberal democracies are more open to inclusion of Muslims than has been recognized. Not less important, the book reveals limits on inclusion that follow from the friction between liberal democratic values. This pioneering work thus brings to light both pathways to progress and polarization traps.

Download or read book Equal Recognition Minority Rights and Liberal Democracy written by Sergi Morales-Gálvez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-23 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Multiculturalism is not à la mode nowadays. It is attacked by both right-wing populists and mainstream politicians and leaders of liberal democracies. Indeed, conflicts surrounding cultural diversity and recognition are among the most salient issues in contemporary societies. Should liberal democracies recognise specific cultural rights of minorities? If so, should they grant rights only to indigenous national minorities or also to immigrants? Is such a recognition compatible with the basic liberal principle of state neutrality? Practical questions of this kind are in quest of sound theoretical foundations. Alan Patten’s approach to multiculturalism, developed in Equal Recognition (2014), is the most recent and prominent example of such an effort. Considered “the most important contribution to the philosophy of cultural diversity since Will Kymlicka’s Multicultural Citizenship”, Patten’s work elaborates new and original conceptions of culture and liberal neutrality. It reasserts the case in favour of liberal multiculturalism and applies its theoretical framework to concrete contemporary issues, such as language rights, federalism, secession, and immigrant integration. This collection presents a critical review of Patten’s approach to cultural plurality. The critics question the overall normative strategy of Equal Recognition, its account of neutrality, especially with regards to language rights, its assumptions about democracy and, finally, its relevance to public policy debates. It will be of interest to political scientists, philosophers, and legal theorists, and will inspire students and politicians alike. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

Download or read book Direct Democracy and Minority Rights written by Daniel C. Lewis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book conclusively demonstrates that direct democracy—institutions like the ballot initiative and the referendum—endangers the rights of minorities and perpetuates a tyranny of the majority. While advocates of direct democracy advocate that these institutions protect citizens from corrupt lawmakers beholden to special interests, Daniel Lewis’s thorough investigation shows how such mass participation exposes minority groups to negative policy outcomes favored by only a slim majority of voters. Some would argue that greater democratic responsiveness is a positive outcome, but without the checks and balances of a representative, separated powers system that encourages deliberation and minority representation, minority rights are at increased risk under direct democracy institutions. While research has been presented that supports both sides of the debate, the existing literature has yet to produce consistent and compelling evidence in favor of one side or the other. This book undertakes a comprehensive examination of the "tyranny of the majority" critique of direct democracy by examining a host of contemporary American state policies that affect the rights of a variety of minority groups. By assessing the impact of direct democracy on both ballot measures and traditional legislation, the book provides a more complete picture of how citizen legislative institutions can affect minority rights, covering a myriad of contemporary (and sometimes controversial) minority rights issues, including same-sex marriage, affirmative action, official English, hate crimes laws, racial profiling, and anti-discrimination laws. The book is unique in its approach and scope, making it compelling for scholars interested in direct democracy, state politics, minority politics and electoral institutions, as well as American politics generally.

Download or read book How Democracies Die written by Steven Levitsky and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Time • Foreign Affairs • WBUR • Paste Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved. Praise for How Democracies Die “What we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.”—The Washington Post “Where Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.”—Ezra Klein, Vox “If you only read one book for the rest of the year, read How Democracies Die. . . .This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history. . . . The best commentary on our politics, no contest.”—Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter) “A smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.”—Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Download or read book Minorities and Religious Freedom in a Democracy written by James Massey and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Book Deals With Christians As A Minority And Controverts The Myth That They Are The Most Forward Community. It Details The General Constitutional Rights As Well As Special Rights Of The Minorities In India And Focuses Attention On The Relationship Between Human Rights Of Minorities. An Essential Reading For Sociologists, Political Scientists, Human Rights Activists And All Others Interested In The Issues Involved And The Future Of Indian Polity.

Download or read book Steadfast Democrats written by Ismail K. White and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Over the last half century, there has been a marked increase in ideological conservatism among African Americans, with nearly 50% of black Americans describing themselves as conservative in the 2000s, as compared to 10% in the 1970s. Support for redistributive initiatives has likewise declined. And yet, even as black Americans shift rightward on ideological and issue positions, Democratic Party identification has stayed remarkable steady, holding at 80% to 90%. It is this puzzle that White and Laird look to address in this new book: Why has ideological change failed to push black Americans into the Republican party? Most explanations for homogeneity have focused on individual dispositions, including ideology and group identity. White and Laird acknowledge that these are important, but point out that such explanations fail to account for continued political unity even in the face of individual ideological change and of individual incentives to defect from this common group behavior. The authors offer instead, or in addition, a behavioral explanation, arguing that black Americans maintain political unity through the establishment and enforcement of well-defined group expectations of black political behavior through a process they term racialized social constraint. The authors explain how black political norms came about, and what these norms are, then show (with the help of survey data and lab-in-field experiments) how such norms are enforced, and where this enforcement happens (through a focus on black institutions). They conclude by exploring the implications of the theory for electoral strategy, as well as explaining how this framework can be used to understand other voter communities"--