Download or read book Reimagining Democratic Societies written by Sjur Bergan and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reimagining democratic societies, although a demanding task, is one in which higher education must engage. As societies change, our understanding of democracy must also evolve. We need democratic institutions, but also democratic culture and democratic innovation. Citizen participation, as a cornerstone of democracy, must go beyond citizen mobilisation on just a few issues. An educated, committed citizenry deeply involved in creating and sustaining diverse democratic societies is essential for human progress and advancing the quality of life for all. The authors - academics, policy makers and practitioners from Europe and the United States - argue this point, making the case for why democratic reimagination and innovation cannot succeed without higher education and why higher education cannot fulfil its educational, academic and societal missions without working for the common good. Case studies provide examples of how higher education can contribute to reimagining and reinvigorating democracy.
Download or read book Cities written by Ash Amin and published by Polity. This book was released on 2002-04-22 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a fresh and challenging perspective on the city. Drawing on a wide and diverse range of material and texts, it argues that too much contemporary urban theory is based on nostalgia for a humane, face-to-face and bounded city. Amin and Thrift maintain that the traditional divide between the city and the rest of the world has been perforated through urban encroachment, the thickening of the links between the two, and urbanization as a way of life. They outline an innovative sociology of the city that scatters urban life along a series of sites and circulations, reinstating previously suppressed areas of contemporary urban life: from the presence of non-human activity to the centrality of distant connections. The implications of this viewpoint are traced through a series of chapters on power, economy and democracy. This concise and accessible book will be of interest to students and scholars in sociology, geography, urban studies, cultural studies and politics. .
Download or read book Reimagining India written by McKinsey & Company, Inc. and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reimagining India brings together leading thinkers from around the world to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by one of the most important and least understood nations on earth. India’s abundance of life—vibrant, chaotic, and tumultuous—has long been its foremost asset. The nation’s rising economy and burgeoning middle class have earned India a place alongside China as one of the world’s two indispensable emerging markets. At the same time, India’s tech-savvy entrepreneurs and rapidly globalizing firms are upending key sectors of the world economy. But what is India’s true potential? And what can be done to unlock it? McKinsey & Company has pulled in wisdom from many corners—social and cultural as well as economic and political—to launch a feisty debate about the future of Asia’s “other superpower.” Reimagining India features an all-star cast of contributors, including CNN’s Fareed Zakaria; Mukesh Ambani, CEO of India’s largest private conglomerate; Microsoft founder Bill Gates; Google chairman Eric Schmidt; Harvard Business School dean Nitin Nohria; award-winning authors Suketu Mehta (Maximum City), Edward Luce (In Spite of the Gods), and Patrick French (India: A Portrait); Nandan Nilekani, Infosys cofounder and chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India; and a host of other leading executives, entrepreneurs, economists, foreign policy experts, journalists, historians, and cultural luminaries. These essays explore topics like the strengths and weaknesses of India’s political system, growth prospects for India’s economy, the competitiveness of Indian firms, India’s rising international profile, and the rapid evolution of India’s culture. Over the next decade India has the opportunity to show the rest of the developing world how open, democratic societies can achieve high growth and shared prosperity. Contributors offer creative strategies for seizing that opportunity. But they also offer a frank assessment of the risks that India’s social and political fractures will instead thwart progress, condemning hundreds of millions of people to enduring poverty. Reimagining India is a critical resource for readers seeking to understand how this vast and vital nation is changing—and how it promises to change the world around us.
Download or read book Liberty and Security written by Conor Gearty and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-03 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All aspire to liberty and security in their lives but few people truly enjoy them. This book explains why this is so. In what Conor Gearty calls our 'neo-democratic' world, the proclamation of universal liberty and security is mocked by facts on the ground: the vast inequalities in supposedly free societies, the authoritarian regimes with regular elections, and the terrible socio-economic deprivation camouflaged by cynically proclaimed commitments to human rights. Gearty's book offers an explanation of how this has come about, providing also a criticism of the present age which tolerates it. He then goes on to set out a manifesto for a better future, a place where liberty and security can be rich platforms for everyone's life. The book identifies neo-democracies as those places which play at democracy so as to disguise the injustice at their core. But it is not just the new 'democracies' that have turned 'neo', the so-called established democracies are also hurtling in the same direction, as is the United Nations. A new vision of universal freedom is urgently required. Drawing on scholarship in law, human rights and political science this book argues for just such a vision, one in which the great achievements of our democratic past are not jettisoned as easily as were the socialist ideals of the original democracy-makers.
Download or read book The Third Way written by Anthony Giddens and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of finding a 'third way' in politics has been widely discussed over recent months - not only in the UK, but in the US, Continental Europe and Latin America. But what is the third way? Supporters of the notion haven't been able to agree, and critics deny the possibility altogether. Anthony Giddens shows that developing a third way is not only a possibility but a necessity in modern politics.
Download or read book Europe written by Jürgen Habermas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The future of Europe and the role it will play in the 21st century are among the most important political questions of our time. The optimism of a decade ago has now faded but the stakes are higher than ever. The way these questions are answered will have enormous implications not only for all Europeans but also for the citizens of Europe’s closest and oldest ally – the USA. In this new book, one of Europe's leading intellectuals examines the political alternatives facing Europe today and outlines a course of action for the future. Habermas advocates a policy of gradual integration of Europe in which key decisions about Europe's future are put in the hands of its peoples, and a 'bipolar commonality' of the West in which a more unified Europe is able to work closely with the United States to build a more stable and equitable international order. This book includes Habermas's portraits of three long-time philosophical companions, Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida and Ronald Dworkin. It also includes several important new texts by Habermas on the impact of the media on the public sphere, on the enduring importance religion in "post-secular" societies, and on the design of a democratic constitutional order for the emergent world society.
Download or read book Student engagement in Europe society higher education and student governance Council of Europe Higher Education Series No 20 written by Manja Klemenčič and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic institutions and laws are essential, but they cannot bring about democracy on their own. They will only function if they build on a culture of democracy, and our societies will not be able to develop and sustain such a culture unless education plays an essential role. Student engagement is crucial: democracy cannot be taught unless it is practised within institutions, among students and in relations between higher education and society in general. This 20th volume of the Council of Europe Higher Education Series demonstrates the importance of student engagement for the development and maintenance of the democratic culture that enables democratic institutions and laws to function in practice. This volume covers three aspects of student engagement that are seldom explored: its role in society through political participation and civic involvement; its place in higher education policy processes and policy-making structures; and how student unions represent the most institutionalised form of student engagement. The authors are accomplished scholars, policy makers, students and student leaders.
Download or read book Can Democracy Safeguard the Future written by Grahame Smith and published by Polity. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our democracies repeatedly fail to safeguard the future. From pensions to pandemics, health and social care through to climate, biodiversity and emerging technologies, democracies have been unable to deliver robust policies for the long term. In this book, Graham Smith, a leading scholar of democratic theory and practice, asks why? Exploring the drivers of the short-termism that dominate contemporary politics, he considers ways of reshaping legislatures and constitutions and proposes strengthening independent offices whose overarching goals do not change at every election. More radically, Smith argues that forms of participatory and deliberative politics offer the most effective democratic response to the current political myopia as well as a powerful means of protecting the interests of generations to come.
Download or read book Crisis written by Sylvia Walby and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations – a focus on ‘austerity’ and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on ‘financial crisis’ and democratic regulation of finance – are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.
Download or read book Higher education for democratic innovation written by Bergan, Sjur and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2016-02-22 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy is increasingly the standard against which societies are measured. The term “democratic culture” designates the set of attitudes and behaviours that citizens need to have for democratic institutions and laws to function in practice. This is an important development from older perceptions of democracy, which focused on institutions, laws and procedures. It is a recognition that democracy will not function unless citizens want it to function. In all countries there are committed individuals aspiring to make their societies better democracies. As the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, has said on several occasions, our societies seek to address 21st-century issues through 19th-century institutions. Through contributions by authors from Europe, North America and other parts of the world, this book explores how higher education can help find new ways to develop commitment to public space and societal engagement and make democracy more vibrant.
Download or read book Mending Democracy written by Carolyn M. Hendriks and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fabric of contemporary democracy in many liberal Western societies is in tatters. Citizens are disconnected from their elected representatives, they are fractured and polarised in the public sphere, and alienated from increasingly complex systems of public policy. These disconnects - in the representative relationship, in the public sphere, and in the policy-making process - are weakening the very fabric of our democracies. This book develops the idea of democratic mending as a way of advancing a more connective and systemic approach to democratic repair. It is informed by three rich empirical cases of connectivity in practice, as well as cutting-edge debates in deliberative democracy.The empirical cases uncover empowering and transformative modes of citizen participation and civic engagement that are vital for democratic renewal. The actors in this book are not withdrawing, resisting or seeking autonomy from conventional institutions of representative democracy but actively experimenting with ways to improve and engage with them. Through their everyday practices of democratic mending they undertake crucial systemic repair work and strengthen the integrity of our democratic fabric in ways that are yet to be fully acknowledged by scholars and practitioners of democratic reform.
Download or read book Time and Social Theory written by Barbara Adam and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Time is at the forefront of contemporary scholarly inquiry across the natural sciences and the humanities. Yet the social sciences have remained substantially isolated from time-related concerns. This book argues that time should be a key part of social theory and focuses concern upon issues which have emerged as central to an understanding of today's social world. Through her analysis of time Barbara Adam shows that our contemporary social theories are firmly embedded in Newtonian science and classical dualistic philosophy. She exposes these classical frameworks of thought as inadequate to the task of conceptualizing our contemporary world of standardized time, computers, nuclear power and global telecommunications.
Download or read book On Education written by Zygmunt Bauman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of education in a world where we no longer have a clear vision of the future and where the idea of a single, universal model of humanity seems like the residue of a bygone age? What role should educators play in a world where young people find themselves faced with deep uncertainty about their future, where the prospects of securing a stable, long-term career seem increasingly remote and where intensified population movements have created more diverse communities in which different cultures find themselves living side by side, no longer bound together by the belief that the other would eventually be assimilated into ‘our' culture? Faced with the bewildering features of our liquid modern world, many young people are inclined to withdraw - in some cases into the online world of games and virtual relationships, in other cases into anorexia, depression, alcohol or even drug abuse, hoping to find shelter from a world perceived as more and more dangerous. Others launch into more violent forms of behaviour, like street gangs and the looting carried out by young people who have been excluded from the temples of consumption but are eager to participate in the ceremony. And all this happens while our politicians look on, uncomprehending and indifferent. In this short book Zygmunt Bauman - the leading social theorist of our liquid modern world, here in conversation with Riccardo Mazzeo - reflects on the predicament of young people today and on the role of education and the educator in a world where the certainties of our predecessors can no longer be taken for granted.
Download or read book Reimagining Civic Education written by Doyle Stevick and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume surveys the new global landscape for democratic civic education. Rooted in qualitative researc, the contributors explore the many ways that notions of democracy and citizenship have been implemented in recent education policy, curriculum, and classroom practice around the world. From Indonesia to the Spokane Reservation and El Salvador to Estonia, these chapters reveal a striking diversity of approaches to political socialization in varying cultural and institutional contexts. By bringing to bear the methodological, conceptual and theoretical perspectives of qualitative research, this book adds important new voices to one of educationOs most critical debates: how to form democratic citizens in a changing world.
Download or read book Consuming Life written by Zygmunt Bauman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-08 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the advent of liquid modernity, the society of producers is transformed into a society of consumers. In this new consumer society, individuals become simultaneously the promoters of commodities and the commodities they promote. They are, at one and the same time, the merchandise and the marketer, the goods and the travelling salespeople. They all inhabit the same social space that is customarily described by the term the market. The test they need to pass in order to acquire the social prizes they covet requires them to recast themselves as products capable of drawing attention to themselves. This subtle and pervasive transformation of consumers into commodities is the most important feature of the society of consumers. It is the hidden truth, the deepest and most closely guarded secret, of the consumer society in which we now live. In this new book Zygmunt Bauman examines the impact of consumerist attitudes and patterns of conduct on various apparently unconnected aspects of social life politics and democracy, social divisions and stratification, communities and partnerships, identity building, the production and use of knowledge, and value preferences. The invasion and colonization of the web of human relations by the worldviews and behavioural patterns inspired and shaped by commodity markets, and the sources of resentment, dissent and occasional resistance to the occupying forces, are the central themes of this brilliant new book by one of the worlds most original and insightful social thinkers.
Download or read book Student engagement in Europe society higher education and student governance written by Manja Klemenčič and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2015-05-27 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic institutions and laws are essential, but they cannot bring about democracy on their own. They will only function if they build on a culture of democracy, and our societies will not be able to develop and sustain such a culture unless education plays an essential role. Student engagement is crucial: democracy cannot be taught unless it is practised within institutions, among students and in relations between higher education and society in general. This 20th volume of the Council of Europe Higher Education Series demonstrates the importance of student engagement for the development and maintenance of the democratic culture that enables democratic institutions and laws to function in practice. This volume covers three aspects of student engagement that are seldom explored: its role in society through political participation and civic involvement; its place in higher education policy processes and policy-making structures; and how student unions represent the most institutionalised form of student engagement. The authors are accomplished scholars, policy makers, students and student leaders.
Download or read book Re Thinking Science written by Helga Nowotny and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-24 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Re-Thinking Science presents an account of the dynamic relationship between society and science. Despite the mounting evidence of a much closer, interactive relationship between society and science, current debate still seems to turn on the need to maintain a 'line' to demarcate them. The view persists that there is a one-way communication flow from science to society - with scant attention given to the ways in which society communicates with science. The authors argue that changes in society now make such communications both more likely and more numerous, and that this is transforming science not only in its research practices and the institutions that support it but also deep in its epistemological core. To explain these changes, Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons have developed an open, dynamic framework for re-thinking science. The authors conclude that the line which formerly demarcated society from science is regularly transgressed and that the resulting closer interaction of science and society signals the emergence of a new kind of science: contextualized or context-sensitive science. The co-evolution between society and science requires a more or less complete re-thinking of the basis on which a new social contract between science and society might be constructed. In their discussion the authors present some of the elements that would comprise this new social contract.
