Download or read book The Athenian Option written by Anthony Barnett and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before New Labour came to power and when even the prospect of reform of Britain's House of Lords was regarded with scepticism, Anthony Barnett and Peter Carty developed the idea of selecting part of a new upper house by lot: creating a jury or juries, that are representative of the population as a whole while being selected at random, to assess legislation. This new edition of the original proposal includes an account of the reception of the idea, their evidence before the Commission on the Lords established by Tony Blair, and a response to the great advances in citizen-based deliberation that have taken place since the mid-1990s. It concludes with a new appeal to adopt their approach as efforts to reform the Lords continue.
Download or read book Law Democracy and the European Court of Human Rights written by Rory O'Connell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores how the European Court of Human Rights understands 'democracy' and might support more deliberative, participatory and inclusive practices.
Download or read book UK Parliament written by Moyra Grant and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-21 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A topical and accessible introductory guide to the workings of the UK's Westminster Parliament, in both theory and practice.
Download or read book Ancient and Modern Democracy written by Wilfried Nippel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-11 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient and Modern Democracy is a comprehensive account of Athenian democracy as a subject of criticism, admiration and scholarly debate for 2,500 years, covering the features of Athenian democracy, its importance for the English, American and French revolutions and for the debates on democracy and political liberty from the nineteenth century to the present. Discussions were always in the context of contemporary constitutional problems. Time and again they made a connection with a long-established tradition, involving both dialogue with ancient sources and with earlier phases of the reception of Antiquity. They refer either to a common cultural legacy or to specific national traditions; they often involve a mixture of political and scholarly arguments. This book elucidates the complexity of considering and constructing systems of popular self-rule.
Download or read book Teardown written by Dave Meslin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As seen on TVO’s adaptation Unrigged A handbook of democratic solutions in troubled times, from the activist the media call a "wizard," a "mastermind," "the ultimate ideas guy," a "mad scientist," a "start-up genius." Our democracy is a trainwreck. Our elections feel hollow and our legislatures have become toxic. Fierce partisanship, centralized power, distorted election results and rigged systems all contribute to our growing cynicism. Voters are increasingly turning towards the angriest candidates, or simply tuning out completely and staying at home. But as Dave Meslin's career has shown, we can fix things. We can turn elite power structures upside down. We can give a voice to ordinary people. But it means fixing things from the bottom up, and starting locally. It's hard to change the world if you can't change a municipal by-law. Teardown shows readers how to do both. And it will show us that these two challenges are not fundamentally different. From environmental activism to public space advocacy to the ongoing campaign for electoral reform, Dave Meslin has been both out on the street in marches and in the back rooms drawing up policy. With Teardown he reminds us that the future of our species doesn't need to look like a trainwreck. That we're capable of so much more. It's time to raise our expectations: of the system, of each other and of ourselves. Only then can we re-imagine a new democracy, unrecognizable from today's political mess. This book is a recipe for change. A cure for cynicism. A war on apathy.
Download or read book Islam the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness written by Patricia Crone and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-06-10 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patricia Crone's Collected Studies in Three Volumes brings together a number of her published, unpublished, and revised writings on Near Eastern and Islamic history, arranged around three distinct but interconnected themes. Volume 3, Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness, places the rise of Islam in the context of the ancient Near East and investigates sceptical and subversive ideas in the Islamic world. Volume 1, The Qurʾānic Pagans and Related Matters, pursues the reconstruction of the religious environment in which Islam arose and develops an intertextual approach to studying the Qurʾānic religious milieu. Volume 2, The Iranian Reception of Islam: The Non-Traditionalist Strands, examines the reception of pre-Islamic legacies in Islam, above all that of the Iranians. The Qurʾānic Pagans and Related Matters The Iranian Reception of Islam: The Non-Traditionalist Strands
Download or read book Random Justice written by Neil Duxbury and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002-07 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This controversial book explores the potential for the use of lotteries in social, and particularly legal, decision-making contexts. Neil Duxbury considers in detail the history, advantages, and drawbacks of deciding issues of social significance by lot and argues that the value of the lottery as a legal decision-making device has generally been underestimated.
Download or read book The Death of Britain written by J. Redwood and published by Springer. This book was released on 1999-05-20 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can the United Kingdom survive devolution, European integration, reform of the Lords, slimming of the monarchy and proportional representation? Will the new House of Lords be anything more than a rubber stamp full of friends of the Prime Minister? Will Scotland now shatter the Union by demanding full independence? In this dramatic new book John Redwood looks at the sweeping changes to Britain's institutions, democracy and the way of life now arising from the European project. Viewing the Blairite revolution as the agency for wider changes coming from the agenda of France, Germany and the European Commission, Redwood asks the key questions: are these changes inevitable, are they desirable, and what will they mean for British democracy?
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Political Representation in Liberal Democracies written by Robert Rohrschneider and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 731 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Political Representation in Liberal Democracies offers a state-of-the-art assessment of the functioning of political representation in liberal democracies. In 34 chapters the world's leading scholars on the various aspects of political representation address eight broad themes: The concept and theories of political representation, its history and the main requisites for its development; elite orientations and behavior; descriptive representation; party government and representation; non-electoral forms of political participation and how they relate to political representation; the challenges to representative democracy originating from the growing importance of non-majoritarian institutions and social media; the rise of populism and its consequences for the functioning of representative democracy; the challenge caused by economic and political globlization: what does it mean for the functioning of political representation at the national leval and is it possible to develop institutions of representative democracy at a level above the state that meet the normative criteria of representative democracy and are supported by the people? The various chapters offer a comprehensive review of the literature on the various aspects of political representation. The main organizing principle of the Handbook is the chain of political representation, the chain connecting the interests and policy preferences of the people to public policy via political parties, parliament, and government. Most of the chapters assessing the functioning of the chain of political representation and its various links are based on original comparative political research. Comparative research on political representation and its various subfields has developed dramatically over the last decades so that even ten years ago a Handbook like this would have looked totally different.
Download or read book Beyond the Republican Revival written by Eric Ghosh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book-length treatment of both the non-positive- and the positive-liberty strands of the republican revival in political and constitutional theory. The republican revival, pursued especially over the last few decades, has presented republicanism as an exciting alternative to the dominant tradition of liberalism. The book provides a sharply different interpretation of liberty from that found in the republican revival, and it argues that this different interpretation is not only historically more faithful to some prominent writers identified with the republican tradition, but is also normatively more attractive. The normative advantages are revealed through discussion of some central concerns relating to democracy and constitutionalism, including the justification for democracy and the interpretation of constitutional rights. The book also looks beyond republican liberty by drawing on the republican device of sortition (selection by lot). It proposes the use of large juries to decide bill-of-rights matters. This novel proposal indicates how democracy might be reconciled with constitutional review based on a bill of rights. Republicanism is not pitted against liberalism: the favoured values and institutions fit with liberal commitments.
Download or read book Democracy as Popular Sovereignty written by Filimon Peonidis and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although democracy is in principle associated with popular rule, in practice it is best described as rule by elected elites. This form of government is not only wanting from a theoretical point of view, but it also no longer seems to meet the expectations of large segments of the citizenry. This book offers a blueprint for an alternative democratic model, democracy as popular sovereignty. Starting with the idea that the people, generously defined, are sovereign when they rule as equally valuable and fully participating members of a self-governing collectivity, this model tries to describe the constitutional and institutional arrangements necessary to achieve a workable version of this idea in advanced democratic states. This implies among other changes a greater dose of direct democracy, the use of sortition and a different conception of representation. The overall argument developed combines insights, facts, and findings from normative political theory, empirical political science, democracy’s long history as well as from the recent burgeoning literature on participatory and deliberative democracy.
Download or read book The Political Class written by Peter Allen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a gap between politicians and the general public. The current British political class is widely viewed as uniform in who they are, what they think, and how they behave. A more diverse pool of politicians would not only better reflect democratic principles of equality, but may even result in better political outcomes.
Download or read book History for Tomorrow written by Roman Krznaric and published by Random House. This book was released on 2024-07-04 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Brimming with ideas and insights, this is a welcome, important and clear-eyed view of how understanding the past can help us better prepare for the future' - Peter Frankopan, bestselling author of The Earth Transformed and The Silk Roads 'Enlightening and thrilling. History for Tomorrow tells us who we are and who we could be' - George Monbiot, bestselling author of Regenesis and How Did We Get Into This Mess? What can humankind’s rich history of radical revolts teach us about the power of disobedience to tackle the climate crisis? What inspiration could we take from eighteenth century Japan to create a regenerative economy today? How might understanding the origins of capitalism spark ideas for bringing AI under control? In History for Tomorrow, leading social philosopher Roman Krznaric unearths fascinating insights and inspiration from the last 1000 years of world history that could help us confront the most urgent challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century. From bridging the inequality gap and reducing the risks of genetic engineering, to reviving our faith in democracy and avoiding ecological collapse, History for Tomorrow shows that history is not simply a means of understanding the past but a way of reimagining our relationship with the future. Krznaric reveals how, time and again, societies have risen up, often against the odds, to tackle challenges and overcome crises. History offers a vision of radical hope that could turn out to be our most vital tool for surviving and thriving in the turbulent decades ahead.
Download or read book The Luck of the Draw written by Peter Stone and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the earliest times, people have used lotteries to make decisions--by drawing straws, tossing coins, picking names out of hats, and so on. We use lotteries to place citizens on juries, draft men into armies, assign students to schools, and even on very rare occasions, select lifeboat survivors to be eaten. Lotteries make a great deal of sense in all of these cases, and yet there is something absurd about them. Largely, this is because lottery-based decisions are not based upon reasons. In fact, lotteries actively prevent reason from playing a role in decision making at all. Over the years, people have devoted considerable effort to solving this paradox and thinking about the legitimacy of lotteries as a whole. However, these scholars have mainly focused on lotteries on a case-by-case basis, not as a part of a comprehensive political theory of lotteries. In The Luck of the Draw, Peter Stone surveys the variety of arguments proffered for and against lotteries and argues that they only have one true effect relevant to decision making: the "sanitizing effect" of preventing decisions from being made on the basis of reasons. While this rationale might sound strange to us, Stone contends that in many instances, it is vital that decisions be made without the use of reasons. By developing innovative principles for the use of lottery-based decision making, Stone lays a foundation for understanding when it is--and when it is not--appropriate to draw lots when making political decisions both large and small.
Download or read book Sortition written by Gil Delannoi and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2016-10-05 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume reflects the up-and-coming academic interest in sortition. It is based on contributions to the first international conference dedicated to the subject held at the University of Political Science (Sciences-Po) in Paris in November 2008. The papers explore important theoretical questions such as how we should recognise and define differing lottery forms; the relationship between sortition and different aspects and forms of democracy; and its potential benefits to current political and commercial practice. Contributors include: Hubertus Buchstein, Gil Delannoi, Oliver Dowlen, Gerhard Göhler, Barbara Goodwin, Michael Hein, Yves Sintomer, Peter Stone and Antoine Vergne.
Download or read book The Lottocratic Mentality written by Cristina Lafont and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Against Elections written by David Van Reybrouck and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A small book with great weight and urgency to it, this is both a history of democracy and a clarion call for change. "Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer," writes Van Reybrouck, regarded today as one of Europe's most astute thinkers. "If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens are longing for participation and how quickly that desire can tip over into frustration, then you realize we are up to our necks." Not so very long ago, the great battles of democracy were fought for the right to vote. Now, Van Reybrouck writes, "it's all about the right to speak, but in essence it's the same battle, the battle for political emancipation and for democratic participation. We must decolonize democracy. We must democratize democracy." As history, Van Reybrouck makes the compelling argument that modern democracy was designed as much to preserve the rights of the powerful and keep the masses in line, as to give the populace a voice. As change-agent, Against Elections makes the argument that there are forms of government, what he terms sortitive or deliberative democracy, that are beginning to be practiced around the world, and can be the remedy we seek. In Iceland, for example, deliberative democracy was used to write the new constitution. A group of people were chosen by lot, educated in the subject at hand, and then were able to decide what was best, arguably, far better than politicians would have. A fascinating, and workable idea has led to a timely book to remind us that our system of government is a flexible instrument, one that the people have the power to change.
