Download or read book Hope for Democracy written by John Gastil and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-20 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concerned citizens across the globe fear that democratic institutions are failing them. Citizens feel shut out of politics and worry that politicians are no longer responsive to their interests. In Hope for Democracy, John Gastil and Katherine R. Knobloch introduce new tools for tamping down hyper-partisanship and placing citizens at the heart of the democratic process. They showcase the Citizens' Initiative Review, which convenes a demographically-balanced random sample of citizens to study statewide ballot measures. Citizen panelists interrogate advocates, opponents, and experts, then write an analysis that distills their findings for voters. Gastil and Knobloch reveal how this process has helped voters better understand the policy issues placed on their ballots. Placed in the larger context of deliberative democratic reforms, Hope for Democracy shows how citizens and public officials can work together to bring more rationality and empathy into modern politics.
Download or read book Arresting Citizenship written by Amy E. Lerman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-06-06 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The numbers are staggering: One-third of America’s adult population has passed through the criminal justice system and now has a criminal record. Many more were never convicted, but are nonetheless subject to surveillance by the state. Never before has the American government maintained so vast a network of institutions dedicated solely to the control and confinement of its citizens. A provocative assessment of the contemporary carceral state for American democracy, Arresting Citizenship argues that the broad reach of the criminal justice system has fundamentally recast the relation between citizen and state, resulting in a sizable—and growing—group of second-class citizens. From police stops to court cases and incarceration, at each stage of the criminal justice system individuals belonging to this disempowered group come to experience a state-within-a-state that reflects few of the country’s core democratic values. Through scores of interviews, along with analyses of survey data, Amy E. Lerman and Vesla M. Weaver show how this contact with police, courts, and prisons decreases faith in the capacity of American political institutions to respond to citizens’ concerns and diminishes the sense of full and equal citizenship—even for those who have not been found guilty of any crime. The effects of this increasingly frequent contact with the criminal justice system are wide-ranging—and pernicious—and Lerman and Weaver go on to offer concrete proposals for reforms to reincorporate this large group of citizens as active participants in American civic and political life.
Download or read book Citizenship in Hard Times written by Sara Wallace Goodman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-20 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comparative study of how citizens define their civic duty in response to current threats to advanced democracies.
Download or read book Democracy A Very Short Introduction written by Bernard Crick and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-10-10 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No political concept is more used, and misused, than that of democracy. Nearly every regime today claims to be democratic, but not all 'democracies' allow free politics, and free politics existed long before democratic franchises. This book is a short account of the history of the doctrine and practice of democracy, from ancient Greece and Rome through the American, French, and Russian revolutions, and of the usages and practices associated with it in the modern world. It argues that democracy is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for good government, and that ideas of the rule of law, and of human rights, should in some situations limit democratic claims. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Semi Citizenship in Democratic Politics written by Elizabeth F. Cohen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-26 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the concept of semi-citizenship into debates about individuals who hold some but not all elements of full democratic citizenship. Cohen uses theoretical analysis, historical examples, and contemporary cases of semi-citizenship to illustrate how divergent normative and governmental doctrines of citizenship make semi-citizenship inevitable in democratic politics.
Download or read book Citizenship and Contemporary Direct Democracy written by David Altman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a comparative study of the origins, performance, and reform of contemporary mechanisms of direct democracy.
Download or read book Media and Political Engagement written by Peter Dahlgren and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-23 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the media's role in shaping civic engagement and enhancing political engagement.
Download or read book Citizens and Community written by Allan Kornberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-04-24 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses political legitimacy and system support in one democracy, Canada.
Download or read book Democracy and Political Ignorance written by Ilya Somin and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Often, many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This may be rational, but it creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know. In Democracy and Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin mines the depths of ignorance in America and reveals the extent to which it is a major problem for democracy. Somin weighs various options for solving this problem, arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government. Somin provocatively argues that people make better decisions when they choose what to purchase in the market or which state or local government to live under, than when they vote at the ballot box, because they have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information and to use it wisely.
Download or read book Sustaining Democracy written by Robert B. Talisse and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy is not easy. Citizens who disagree sharply about politics must nonetheless work together as equal partners in the enterprise of collective self-government. Ideally, this work would be conducted under conditions of mutual civility, with opposed citizens nonetheless recognizing one another's standing as political equals. But when the political stakes are high, and the opposition seems to us severely mistaken, why not drop the democratic pretences of civil partnership, and simply play to win? Why seek to uphold properly democratic relations with those who embrace political ideas that are flawed, irresponsible, and out of step with justice? Why sustain democracy with political foes? Drawing on extensive social science research concerning political polarization and partisan identity, Robert B. Talisse argues that when we break off civil interactions with our political opponents, we imperil relations with our political allies. In the absence of engagement with our political critics, our alliances grow increasingly homogeneous, conformist, and hierarchical. Moreover, they fracture and devolve amidst internal conflicts. In the end, our political aims suffer because our coalitions shrink and grow ineffective. Why sustain democracy with our foes? Because we need them if we are going to sustain democracy with our allies and friends.
Download or read book Open Democracy written by Hélène Landemore and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in public and debating laws set by a randomly selected assembly of several hundred citizens. To the Icelandic Vikings, democracy meant meeting every summer in a field to discuss issues until consensus was reached. Our contemporary representative democracies are very different. Modern parliaments are gated and guarded, and it seems as if only certain people are welcome. Diagnosing what is wrong with representative government and aiming to recover some of the openness of ancient democracies, Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy. Supporting a fresh nonelectoral understanding of democratic representation, Hélène Landemore demonstrates that placing ordinary citizens, rather than elites, at the heart of democratic power is not only the true meaning of a government of, by, and for the people, but also feasible and, more than ever, urgently needed. -- Cover page 4.
Download or read book Democracy at Risk written by Stephen Macedo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006-05-25 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voter turnout was unusually high in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. At first glance, that level of participation—largely spurred by war in Iraq and a burgeoning culture war at home—might look like vindication of democracy. If the recent past is any indication, however, too many Americans will soon return to apathy and inactivity. Clearly, all is not well in our civic life. Citizens are participating in public affairs too infrequently, too unequally, and in too few venues to develop and sustain a robust democracy. This important new book explores the problem of America's decreasing involvement in its own affairs. D emocracy at Risk reveals the dangers of civic disengagement for the future of representative democracy. The authors, all eminent scholars, undertake three main tasks: documenting recent trends in civic engagement, exploring the influence that the design of political institutions and public policies have had on those trends, and recommending steps that will increase the amount and quality of civic engagement in America. The authors focus their attention on three key areas: the electoral process, including elections and the way people get involved; the impact of location, including demographic shifts and changing development patterns; and the critical role of nonprofit organizations and voluntary associations, including the philanthropy that help keep them going. This important project, initially sponsored by the American Political Science Association, tests the proposition that social science has useful insights on the state of our democratic life. Most importantly, it charts a course for reinvigorating civic participation in the world's oldest democracy. The authors: Stephen Macedo (Princeton University), Yvette Alex-Assensoh (Indiana University), Jeffrey M. Berry (Tufts), Michael Brintnall (American Political Science Association), David E. Campbell (Notre Dame), Luis Ricardo Fraga (Stanford), Archon Fung (Harvard), William
Download or read book Citizens Uniting to Restore Our Democracy written by Daniel Kemmis and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The election of Donald Trump in 2016 shocked the American political system, and the aftershocks have widened the nation’s partisan divide and magnified deep tensions in the public sphere. At a time when our political focus so often shrinks to the immediacy of the latest jolt, this book puts these alarming events in a much broader—and more manageable—context. Even as we become more polarized along partisan and ideological lines, author Daniel Kemmis reminds us that authentic conservatism and progressivism are both deeply rooted in genuine human concerns and in the shared history of our democratic republic. Citizens Uniting to Restore Our Democracy is at once a cogent analysis of what ails our body politic and a wide-ranging, deeply informed prescription for healing our wounded democracy. The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission amplified the role of big money in American politics. But, as Kemmis notes, the threats to our democracy long preceded Citizens United. While the influence of big money and relentless partisanship can make ordinary citizens feel powerless in a chaotic political culture, Citizens Uniting to Restore Our Democracy offers a stirring reassertion of the power Americans possess as collaborative problem-solvers—namely, the very homegrown self-governing skills needed to rebuild our democracy. Drawing on several decades of public service—as a politician, activist, and scholar, one of Utne Reader’s “100 Visionaries Changing the World”—Kemmis highlights the transformative potential latent in the everyday practice of engaged citizenship. Leveraged by new mechanisms, such as an effective democratic lobby of the kind his book advocates, that reservoir of active, hands-on citizenship must be mobilized into a twenty-first-century version of the Progressive movement, providing both necessary and sufficient conditions for the renewal of the nation’s democratic institutions.
Download or read book Sentimental Citizen written by George E. Marcus and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Analysis Of How emotion functions cooperatively with reason & contributes to a healthy democratic politics.
Download or read book Doubt and the Demands of Democratic Citizenship written by David R. Hiley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-06-26 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The triumph of democracy has been heralded as one of the greatest achievements of the twentieth century, yet it seems to be in a relatively fragile condition in the United States, if one is to judge by the proliferation of editorials, essays, and books that focus on politics and distrust of government. Doubt and the Demands of Democratic Citizenship explores the reasons for public discontent and proposes an account of democratic citizenship appropriate for a robust democracy. David Hiley argues that citizenship is more than participating in the electoral process. It requires a capacity to participate in the deliberative process with other citizens who might disagree, a capacity that combines deep convictions with a willingness to subject those convictions. Hiley develops his argument by examining the connection between doubt and democracy generally, as well as through case studies of Socrates, Montaigne, and Rousseau, interpreting them in light of contemporary issues.
Download or read book Educated by Initiative written by Daniel A. Smith and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-11-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This body of research not only passes academic muster but is the best guidepost in existence for activists who are trying to use the ballot initiative process for larger policy and political objectives." --Kristina Wilfore, Executive Director, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center and Foundation Educated by Initiative moves beyond previous evaluations of public policy to emphasize the educational importance of the initiative process itself. Since a majority of ballots ultimately fail or get overturned by the courts, Smith and Tolbert suggest that the educational consequences of initiative voting may be more important than the outcomes of the ballots themselves. The result is a fascinating and thoroughly-researched book about how direct democracy teaches citizens about politics, voting, civic engagement and the influence of special interests and political parties. Designed to be accessible to anyone interested in the future of American democracy, the book includes boxes (titled "What Matters") that succinctly summarize the authors' data into easily readable analyses. Daniel A. Smith is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. Caroline J. Tolbert is Associate Professor of Political Science at Kent State University.
