Download or read book Poverty Participation and Democracy written by Anirudh Krishna and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-21 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For too long a conventional wisdom has held sway, suggesting that poor people in poor countries are not supportive of democracy and that democracies will be sustained only after a certain average level of wealth has been achieved. Evidence from 24 diverse countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America examined in this volume shows how poor people do not value democracy any less than their richer counterparts. Their faith in democracy is as high as that of other citizens, and they participate in democratic activities as much as their richer counterparts. Democracy is not likely to be unstable or unwelcome simply because poverty is widespread. Political attitudes and participation levels are unaffected by relative wealth. Education, rather than income or wealth, makes for more committed and engaged democratic citizens. Investments in education will make a critical difference for stabilizing and strengthening democracy.
Download or read book Poverty and Democracy written by Dirk Berg-Schlosser and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 2003-06-28 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Voice and Inequality written by Carew Boulding and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How do poor people in Latin America participate in politics? What explains the variation in the patterns of voting, protesting, and contacting government for the region's poorest citizens? Why are participation gaps larger in some countries than in others? This book offers the first large scale empirical analysis of political participation in Latin America, focusing on patterns of participation among the poorest citizens in each country, and comparing those patterns to those of individuals with more resources. Far from being politically inert, under certain conditions the poorest citizens in Latin America can act and speak for themselves with an intensity that far exceeds their modest socioeconomic resources. We argue that key institutions of democracy, namely civil society, political parties, and competitive elections, have an enormous impact on whether or not poor people turn out to vote, protest, and contact government officials. When voluntary organizations thrive in poor communities and when political parties focus their mobilization efforts on poor individuals, they respond with high levels of political activism. Poor people's activism also benefits from strong parties, robust electoral competition and well-functioning democratic institutions. Where electoral competition is robust and where the power of incumbents is constrained, we see higher levels of participation by poor individuals and more political equality. Precisely because the individual resource constraints that poor people face are daunting obstacles to political activism, our explanation focuses on those features of democratic politics that create opportunities for participation that have the strongest effect on poor people's political behavior"--
Download or read book Poverty of Democracy written by Claudio A. Holzner and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-11-28 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political participation rates have declined steadily in Mexico since the 1990s. The decline has been most severe among the poor, producing a stratified pattern that more and more mirrors Mexico's severe socioeconomic inequalities. Poverty of Democracy examines the political marginalization of Mexico's poor despite their key role in the struggle for democracy. Claudio A. Holzner uses case study evidence drawn from eight years of fieldwork in Oaxaca, and from national surveys to show how the institutionalization of a free-market democracy created a political system that discourages the political participation of Mexico's poor by limiting their access to politicians at the local and national level. Though clean elections bolster political activity, Holzner shows that at the local level, and particularly in Mexico's poorest regions, deeply rooted enclaves of authoritarianism and clientelism still constrict people's political opportunities. To explain this phenomenon, Holzner develops an institutional theory in which party systems, state-society linkages, and public policies are the key determinants of citizen political activity. These institutions shape patterns of political participation by conferring and distributing resources, motivating or discouraging an interest in politics, and by affecting the incentives citizens from different income groups have for targeting the state with political activity. Holzner's study sheds light on a disturbing trend in Latin America (and globally), in which neoliberal systems exacerbate political and economic disparities and create institutions that translate economic inequalities into political ones.
Download or read book Poverty of Democracy written by Claudio A. Holzner and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Democracy Without Decency written by William M. Epstein and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conservative attacks on the welfare system in the United States over the past several decades have put liberal defenders of poverty relief and social insurance programs on the defensive. In this no-holds-barred look at the reality of American social policy since World War II, William Epstein argues that this defense is not worth mounting—that the claimed successes of American social programs are not sustained by evidence. Rather than their failure being the result of inadequate implementation or political resistance stemming from the culture wars, these programs and their built-in limitations actually do represent what the vast majority of people in this country want them to be. However much people may speak in favor of welfare, the proof of what they really want is in the pudding of the social policies that are actually legislated. The stinginess of America’s welfare system is the product of basic American values rooted in the myth of “heroic individualism” and reinforced by a commitment to social efficiency, the idea that social services need to be minimal and compatible with current social arrangements.
Download or read book People Poverty and Participation written by and published by Combat Poverty Agency. This book was released on 2009 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Inequality and American Democracy written by Lawrence R. Jacobs and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2005-08-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the twentieth century, the United States ended some of its most flagrant inequalities. The "rights revolution" ended statutory prohibitions against women's suffrage and opened the doors of voting booths to African Americans. Yet a more insidious form of inequality has emerged since the 1970s—economic inequality—which appears to have stalled and, in some arenas, reversed progress toward realizing American ideals of democracy. In Inequality and American Democracy, editors Lawrence Jacobs and Theda Skocpol headline a distinguished group of political scientists in assessing whether rising economic inequality now threatens hard-won victories in the long struggle to achieve political equality in the United States. Inequality and American Democracy addresses disparities at all levels of the political and policy-making process. Kay Lehman Scholzman, Benjamin Page, Sidney Verba, and Morris Fiorina demonstrate that political participation is highly unequal and strongly related to social class. They show that while economic inequality and the decreasing reliance on volunteers in political campaigns serve to diminish their voice, middle class and working Americans lag behind the rich even in protest activity, long considered the political weapon of the disadvantaged. Larry Bartels, Hugh Heclo, Rodney Hero, and Lawrence Jacobs marshal evidence that the U.S. political system may be disproportionately responsive to the opinions of wealthy constituents and business. They argue that the rapid growth of interest groups and the increasingly strict party-line voting in Congress imperils efforts at enacting policies that are responsive to the preferences of broad publics and to their interests in legislation that extends economic and social opportunity. Jacob Hacker, Suzanne Mettler, and Dianne Pinderhughes demonstrate the feedbacks of government policy on political participation and inequality. In short supply today are inclusive public policies like the G.I. Bill, Social Security legislation, the War on Poverty, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that changed the American political climate, mobilized interest groups, and altered the prospect for initiatives to stem inequality in the last fifty years. Inequality and American Democracy tackles the complex relationships between economic, social, and political inequality with authoritative insight, showcases a new generation of critical studies of American democracy, and highlights an issue of growing concern for the future of our democratic society.
Download or read book Impossible Democracy written by Noel A. Cazenave and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2008-06-05 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honorable Mention, 2008 Gustavus Myers Book Award, presented by the Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights in North America Impossible Democracy challenges the conventional wisdom that the War on Poverty failed, by exploring the unlikely success of its community action programs. Using two projects in Manhattan that were influential precursors of community action programs—the Mobilization for Youth and the Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited-Associated Community Teams—Noel A. Cazenave analyzes national and local conflicts in the 1960s over what the nature of community action should be. Fueled by the civil rights movement, activist social scientists promoted a model of community action that allowed for the use of social protest as an instrument of local reform. In addition, they advanced a more participatory view of how democracy should work, one that insisted local decision making not be left solely to elected officials and other powerful people, as traditionally done.
Download or read book Poverty in Common written by Alyosha Goldstein and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-23 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work looks at inter-related post WWII case studies to analyze the ways in which different groups, mostly governmental agencies and emerging activist organizations, invoked the idea of "community" in anti-poverty initiatives during the late 1950s and 1960s.
Download or read book Listen Hear written by UK Coalition Against Poverty. Commission on Poverty, Participation and Power and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why don't more people experiencing poverty vote? Or take part in consultations? Why don't they participate in decision-making processes that affect their lives? This report, commissioned by the Commission on Poverty, Participation and Power looks at the possible answers.It found that - despite the declared commitment of the UK government - too many experiences of participation without the power to bring about change have left people in poverty highly sceptical. The Commission consisted of half grassroots and half public life representatives and built on Voices for Change, a two-year consultation with local groups across the UK to identify barriers which prevent people living in poverty participating in decision making.The report reveals the stark divide between policy makers and the people they claim to represent. It highlights the radical changes needed to make sure that participation does not just echo back the views of those in power. And it argues that without these changes, policies to tackle poverty and revitalise democracy will not succeed.Listen hear is important reading for all those involved in anti-poverty and regeneration work, including community groups, voluntary organisations, local authorities, the devolved administrations, public authorities and central government - and of course, above all, people experiencing poverty themselves.
Download or read book Fragmented Democracy written by Jamila Michener and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medicaid is the single largest public health insurer in the United States, covering upwards of 70 million Americans. Crucially, Medicaid is also an intergovernmental program that yokes poverty to federalism: the federal government determines its broad contours, while states have tremendous discretion over how Medicaid is designed and implemented. Where some locales are generous and open handed, others are tight-fisted and punitive. In Fragmented Democracy, Jamila Michener demonstrates the consequences of such disparities for democratic citizenship. Unpacking how federalism transforms Medicaid beneficiaries' interpretations of government and structures their participation in politics, the book examines American democracy from the vantage point(s) of those who are living in or near poverty, (disproportionately) Black or Latino, and reliant on a federated government for vital resources.
Download or read book Dilemmas of Social Reform written by Peter Marris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is a classic work on social reform. It is an account of the origins and development of community action from its beginnings in the Ford Foundation Gray Area Programs and the President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, through the rise and decline of the War on Poverty and the Model Cities program. In the ruthlessly impartial examination of various poverty programs, two social scientists one British, one American--explain why programs of such size and complexity have only a minimal chance of success. They describe the realities of reform and point up how the conservatism of bureaucracy, the rivalries among political and administrative jurisdictions, and the apathy of the poor have often hindered national and local efforts. On the other hand, they show how these obstacles can be overcome by an imaginative combination of leadership, democratic participation, and scientific analysis. This second edition also contains a new chapter that was not included in the first edition. This new chapter, tries to set the study in a broader context: first, by interpreting the political motives and constraints that led to the adoption of community action as a principal strategy of a nationwide war on poverty and second, by discussing the underlying weaknesses of democracy that community action implied and sought to tackle. Distinguished by an analysis of the major critics of community action, the book provides a balanced perspective of the movement against its many foes. It is important reading for anyone engaged in planning or community action, whether as organizer, consultant, official, or politician.
Download or read book Mobilizing for Democracy written by Vera Schatten Coelho and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mobilizing for Democracy is an in-depth study into how ordinary citizens and their organizations mobilize to deepen democracy. Featuring a collection of new empirical case studies from Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, this important new book illustrates how forms of political mobilization, such as protests, social participation, activism, litigation and lobbying, engage with the formal institutions of representative democracy in ways that are core to the development of democratic politics. No other volume has brought together examples from such a broad Southern spectrum and covering such a diversity of actors: rural and urban dwellers, transnational activists, religious groups, politicians and social leaders. The cases illuminate the crucial contribution that citizen mobilization makes to democratization and the building of state institutions, and reflect the uneasy relationship between citizens and the institutions that are designed to foster their political participation.
Download or read book Participation of the Poor written by Ralph M. Kramer and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1969 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparison of social participation in community development and anti-poverty programmes in the USA - comprises 4 case studies of the administrative aspects and social implications of underprivileged minority group participation in decision making and local level social planning under the community action programme in california. References.
Download or read book Poverty in World Politics written by Sarah Owen Vandersluis and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-06-03 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As globalizations of all sorts continue to gain momentum, the idea of democratic participation in political community is becoming ever less tangible. Poverty in World Politics features a collection of articles on the failures to realize democratic ideals in a "global era," evident in the exclusionary processes of a globalizing world economy and the persistence and increase in poverty. The contributors draw upon methods and insights from varied fields, including International Relations, Development Studies, and Ethics, to address the contemporary ethical and political dilemmas and alternative with respect to world poverty.
Download or read book The Capability Approach Empowerment and Participation written by David Alexander Clark and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the linkages between Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach and participatory forms of development – especially those associated with critical pedagogy and empowerment from the bottom-up. It shows how the capability approach and the participatory movement can complement and reinforce each other helping to ensure that democratic principles are respected and become the foundation for sustainable human development. The Capability Approach provides guiding principles for protecting the transformative roots of participation (safeguarding ownership, accountability and empowerment), while participation delivers vital methods for making the Capability Approach operational. Divided into three overlapping parts that focus on concepts, methods and applications, this work draws on diverse fieldwork experiences to unpack power relations, address adaptive preferences, explore individual and collective agency, consider new partnerships for development, and develop innovative concepts.
