Download or read book Democracy in One Book or Less written by David Litt and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times–Bestselling Author: “Brings Dave Barry-style humor to an illuminating book on what is wrong with American democracy—and how to put it right.” —The Washington Post The democracy you live in today is different—completely different—from the democracy you were born into. You probably don't realize just how radically your republic has been altered during your lifetime. Yet more than any policy issue, political trend, or even Donald Trump himself, our redesigned system of government is responsible for the peril America faces today. What explains the gap between what We, the People want and what our elected leaders do? How can we fix our politics before it's too late? And how can we truly understand the state of our democracy without wanting to crawl under a rock? That’s what former Obama speechwriter David Litt set out to answer. Poking into forgotten corners of history, translating political science into plain English, and traveling the country to meet experts and activists, Litt explains how the world’s greatest experiment in democracy went awry. (He also tries to crash a party at Mitch McConnell’s former frat house. It goes poorly.) The result is something you might not have thought possible: an unexpectedly funny page-turner about the political process. You’ll meet the Supreme Court justice charged with murder, learn how James Madison’s college roommate broke the Senate, encounter a citrus thief who embodies what’s wrong with our elections, and join Belle the bill as she tries to become a law (a quest far more harrowing than the one in Schoolhouse Rock!). Yet despite his clear-eyed assessment of the dangers we face, Litt remains audaciously optimistic. He offers a to-do list of bold yet achievable changes—a blueprint for restoring the balance of power in America. “In the book’s strongest contribution, Litt shows how radically our democracy has been altered in recent decades . . . [making] the case that nearly all of these negative trends are occurring by design.” —The Washington Post “Wry, quickly readable, yet informed.” —The Atlantic “Equal parts how-to, historical, and hilarious.” —Keegan-Michael Key
Download or read book Democracy written by Condoleezza Y Rice and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the former secretary of state and bestselling author -- a sweeping look at the global struggle for democracy and why America must continue to support the cause of human freedom. "This heartfelt and at times very moving book shows why democracy proponents are so committed to their work...Both supporters and skeptics of democracy promotion will come away from this book wiser and better informed." -- The New York Times From the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union to the ongoing struggle for human rights in the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice has served on the front lines of history. As a child, she was an eyewitness to a third awakening of freedom, when her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, became the epicenter of the civil rights movement for black Americans. In this book, Rice explains what these epochal events teach us about democracy. At a time when people around the world are wondering whether democracy is in decline, Rice shares insights from her experiences as a policymaker, scholar, and citizen, in order to put democracy's challenges into perspective. When the United States was founded, it was the only attempt at self-government in the world. Today more than half of all countries qualify as democracies, and in the long run that number will continue to grow. Yet nothing worthwhile ever comes easily. Using America's long struggle as a template, Rice draws lessons for democracy around the world -- from Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, to Kenya, Colombia, and the Middle East. She finds that no transitions to democracy are the same because every country starts in a different place. Pathways diverge and sometimes circle backward. Time frames for success vary dramatically, and countries often suffer false starts before getting it right. But, Rice argues, that does not mean they should not try. While the ideal conditions for democracy are well known in academia, they never exist in the real world. The question is not how to create perfect circumstances but how to move forward under difficult ones. These same insights apply in overcoming the challenges faced by governments today. The pursuit of democracy is a continuing struggle shared by people around the world, whether they are opposing authoritarian regimes, establishing new democratic institutions, or reforming mature democracies to better live up to their ideals. The work of securing it is never finished. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Download or read book Democracy on Trial written by Jean Bethke Elshtain and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 1993-11-08 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is democracy as we know it in danger? More and more we confront one another as aggrieved groups rather than as free citizens. Deepening cynicism, the growth of corrosive individualism, statism, and the loss of civil society are warning signs that democracy may be incapable of satisfying the yearnings it itself unleashes - yearnings for freedom, fairness, and equality. In her 1993 CBC Massey Lectures, political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain delves into these complex issues to evaluate democracy's chances for survival.
Download or read book Democracy Unchained written by David Orr and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stellar group of America's leading political thinkers explore how to reboot our democracy The presidential election of 2016 highlighted some long-standing flaws in American democracy and added a few new ones. Across the political spectrum, most Americans do not believe that democracy is delivering on its promises of fairness, justice, shared prosperity, or security in a changing world. The nation cannot even begin to address climate change and economic justice if it remains paralyzed by political gridlock. Democracy Unchained is about making American democracy work to solve problems that have long impaired our system of governance. The book is the collective work of thirty of the most perceptive writers, practitioners, scientists, educators, and journalists writing today, who are committed to moving the political conversation from the present anger and angst to the positive and constructive change necessary to achieve the full promise of a durable democracy that works for everyone and protects our common future. Including essays by Yasha Mounk on populism, Chisun Lee on money and politics, Ras Baraka on building democracy from the ground up, and Bill McKibben on climate, Democracy Unchained is the articulation of faith in democracy and will be required reading for all who are working to make democracy a reality. Table of Contents Foreword Introduction David W. Orr Part I. The Crisis of Democracy Populism and Democracy Yascha Mounk Reconstructing Our Constitutional Democracy K. Sabeel Rahman Restoring Healthy Party Competition Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson When Democracy Becomes Something Else: The Problem of Elections and What to Do About It Andrew Gumbel The Best Answer to Money in Politics After Citizens United: Public Campaign Financing in the Empire State and Beyond Chisun Lee Remaking the Presidency After Trump Jeremi Suri The Problem of Presidentialism Stephen Skowronek Part II. Foundations of Democracy Renewing the American Democratic Faith Steven C. Rockefeller American Land, American Democracy Eric Freyfogle Race and Democracy: The Kennedys, Obama, Trump, and Us Michael Eric Dyson Liberty and Justice for All: Latina Activist Efforts to Strengthen Democracy in 2018 Maria Hinojosa What Black Women Teach Us About Democracy Andra Gillespie and Nadia E. Brown Engines of Democracy: Racial Justice and Cultural Power Rashad Robinson Civic and Environmental Education: Protecting the Planet and Our Democracy Judy Braus The Supreme Court's Legitimacy Crisis and Constitutional Democracy’s Future Dawn Johnsen Part III. Policy Challenges Can Democracy Survive the Internet? David Hickton The New New Deal: How to Reregulate Capitalism Robert Kuttner First Understand Why They're Winning: How to Save Democracy from the Anti-Immigrant Far Right Sasha Polakow-Suransky No Time Left: How the System Is Failing to Address Our Ultimate Crisis Bill McKibben Powering Democracy Through Clean Energy Denise G. Fairchild The Long Crisis: American Foreign Policy Before and After Trump Jessica Tuchman Mathews Part IV. Who Acts, and How? The Case for Strong Government William S. Becker The States Nick Rathod Democracy in a Struggling Swing State Amy Hanauer Can Independent Voters Save American Democracy? Why 42 Percent of American Voters Are Independent and How They Can Transform Our Political System Jaqueline Salit and Thom Reilly Philanthropy and Democracy Stephen B. Heintz Keeping the Republic Dan Moulthrop The Future of Democracy Mayor Ras Baraka Building a University Where All People Matter Michael M. Crow, William B. Dabars, and Derrick M. Anderson Biophilia and Direct Democracy Timothy Beatley Purpose-Driven Capitalism Mindy Lubber Restoring Democracy: Nature's Trust, Human Survival, and Constitutional Fiduciary Governance 397 Mary Christina Wood Conclusion Ganesh Sitaraman
Download or read book Democracy s Meanings written by Nicholas T. Davis and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do the people who make up American democracy view and judge its process?
Download or read book New Democracy written by William J. Novak and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The activist state of the New Deal started forming decades before the FDR administration, demonstrating the deep roots of energetic government in America. In the period between the Civil War and the New Deal, American governance was transformed, with momentous implications for social and economic life. A series of legal reforms gradually brought an end to nineteenth-century traditions of local self-government and associative citizenship, replacing them with positive statecraft: governmental activism intended to change how Americans lived and worked through legislation, regulation, and public administration. The last time American public life had been so thoroughly altered was in the late eighteenth century, at the founding and in the years immediately following. William J. Novak shows how Americans translated new conceptions of citizenship, social welfare, and economic democracy into demands for law and policy that delivered public services and vindicated peopleÕs rights. Over the course of decades, Americans progressively discarded earlier understandings of the reach and responsibilities of government and embraced the idea that legislators and administrators in Washington could tackle economic regulation and social-welfare problems. As citizens witnessed the successes of an energetic, interventionist state, they demanded more of the same, calling on politicians and civil servants to address unfair competition and labor exploitation, form public utilities, and reform police power. Arguing against the myth that America was a weak state until the New Deal, New Democracy traces a steadily aggrandizing authority well before the Roosevelt years. The United States was flexing power domestically and intervening on behalf of redistributive goals for far longer than is commonly recognized, putting the lie to libertarian claims that the New Deal was an aberration in American history.
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 What Universities Owe Democracy written by Ronald J. Daniels and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction -- American dreams : access, mobility, fairness -- Free minds : educating democratic citizens -- Hard facts : knowledge creation and checking power -- Purposeful pluralism : dialogue across difference on campus -- Conclusion.
Download or read book Healing the Heart of Democracy written by Parker J. Palmer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-07-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hope for American democracy in an era of deep divisions In Healing the Heart of Democracy, Parker J. Palmer quickens our instinct to seek the common good and gives us the tools to do it. This timely, courageous and practical work—intensely personal as well as political—is not about them, "those people" in Washington D.C., or in our state capitals, on whom we blame our political problems. It's about us, "We the People," and what we can do in everyday settings like families, neighborhoods, classrooms, congregations and workplaces to resist divide-and-conquer politics and restore a government "of the people, by the people, for the people." In the same compelling, inspiring prose that has made him a bestselling author, Palmer explores five "habits of the heart" that can help us restore democracy's foundations as we nurture them in ourselves and each other: An understanding that we are all in this together An appreciation of the value of "otherness" An ability to hold tension in life-giving ways A sense of personal voice and agency A capacity to create community Healing the Heart of Democracy is an eloquent and empowering call for "We the People" to reclaim our democracy. The online journal Democracy & Education called it "one of the most important books of the early 21st Century." And Publishers Weekly, in a Starred Review, said "This beautifully written book deserves a wide audience that will benefit from discussing it."
Download or read book Democracy written by David A. Moss and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year “This absolutely splendid book is a triumph on every level. A first-rate history of the United States, it is beautifully written, deeply researched, and filled with entertaining stories. For anyone who wants to see our democracy flourish, this is the book to read.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin To all who say our democracy is broken—riven by partisanship, undermined by extremism, corrupted by wealth—history offers hope. Democracy’s nineteen cases, honed in David Moss’s popular course at Harvard and taught at the Library of Congress, in state capitols, and at hundreds of high schools across the country, take us from Alexander Hamilton’s debates in the run up to the Constitutional Convention to Citizens United. Each one presents a pivotal moment in U.S. history and raises questions facing key decision makers at the time: Should the delegates support Madison’s proposal for a congressional veto over state laws? Should Lincoln resupply Fort Sumter? Should Florida lawmakers approve or reject the Equal Rights Amendment? Should corporations have a right to free speech? Moss invites us to engage in the passionate debates that are crucial to a healthy society. “Engagingly written, well researched, rich in content and context...Moss believes that fierce political conflicts can be constructive if they are mediated by shared ideals.” —Glenn C. Altschuler, Huffington Post “Gives us the facts of key controversies in our history—from the adoption of the constitution to Citizens United—and invites readers to decide for themselves...A valuable resource for civic education.” —Michael Sandel, author of Justice
Download or read book Democracy in Chains written by Nancy MacLean and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist for the National Book Award The Nation's "Most Valuable Book" “[A] vibrant intellectual history of the radical right.”—The Atlantic “This sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself is at the heart of Democracy in Chains. . . . If you're worried about what all this means for America's future, you should be.”—NPR An explosive exposé of the right’s relentless campaign to eliminate unions, suppress voting, privatize public education, stop action on climate change, and alter the Constitution. Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules, but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect—the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan—and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority. In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last gasp attempt to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us. Corporate donors and their right-wing foundations were only too eager to support Buchanan’s work in teaching others how to divide America into “makers” and “takers.” And when a multibillionaire on a messianic mission to rewrite the social contract of the modern world, Charles Koch, discovered Buchanan, he created a vast, relentless, and multi-armed machine to carry out Buchanan’s strategy. Without Buchanan's ideas and Koch's money, the libertarian right would not have succeeded in its stealth takeover of the Republican Party as a delivery mechanism. Now, with Mike Pence as Vice President, the cause has a longtime loyalist in the White House, not to mention a phalanx of Republicans in the House, the Senate, a majority of state governments, and the courts, all carrying out the plan. That plan includes harsher laws to undermine unions, privatizing everything from schools to health care and Social Security, and keeping as many of us as possible from voting. Based on ten years of unique research, Democracy in Chains tells a chilling story of right-wing academics and big money run amok. This revelatory work of scholarship is also a call to arms to protect the achievements of twentieth-century American self-government.
Download or read book Democracy and Tradition written by Jeffrey Stout and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asking how the citizens of modern democracy can reason with one another, this book carves out a controversial position between those who view religious voices as an anathema to democracy and those who believe democratic society is a moral wasteland because such voices are not heard.
Download or read book The Democracy Project written by David Graeber and published by Doubleday UK. This book was released on 2013 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the idea of democracy, its current state of crisis, and its potential as a tool for change, sharing historical perspectives on the effectiveness of democratic uprisings in various times and cultures.
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 Assessing the Quality of Democracy written by Larry Diamond and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2005-11-25 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description
Download or read book The Price of Democracy written by Julia Cagé and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why and how systems of political financing and representation in Europe and North America give outsized influence to the wealthy and undermine democracy, and what we can do about it. One person, one vote. In theory, everyone in a democracy has equal power to decide elections. But it’s hardly news that, in reality, political outcomes are heavily determined by the logic of one dollar, one vote. We take the political power of money for granted. But does it have to be this way? In The Price of Democracy, Julia Cagé combines economic and historical analysis with political theory to show how profoundly our systems in North America and Europe, from think tanks and the media to election campaigns, are shaped by money. She proposes fundamental reforms to bring democracy back into line with its egalitarian promise. Cagé shows how different countries have tried to develop legislation to curb the power of private money and to develop public systems to fund campaigns and parties. But these attempts have been incoherent and unsystematic. She demonstrates that it is possible to learn from these experiments in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to design a better system that would increase political participation and trust. This would involve setting a strict cap on private donations and creating a public voucher system to give each voter an equal amount to spend in support of political parties. More radically, Cagé argues that a significant fraction of seats in parliamentary assemblies should be set aside for representatives from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. At a time of widespread political disenchantment, The Price of Democracy is a bracing reminder of the problems we face and an inspirational guide to the potential for reform.
Download or read book The Case For Democracy written by Natan Sharansky and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2009-02-23 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natan Sharansky believes that the truest expression of democracy is the ability to stand in the middle of a town square and express one's views without fear of imprisonment. He should know. A dissident in the USSR, Sharansky was jailed for nine years for challenging Soviet policies. During that time he reinforced his moral conviction that democracy is essential to both protecting human rights and maintaining global peace and security. Sharansky was catapulted onto the Israeli political stage in 1996. In the last eight years, he has served as a minister in four different Israeli cabinets, including a stint as Deputy Prime Minister, playing a key role in government decision making from the peace negotiations at Wye to the war against Palestinian terror. In his views, he has been as consistent as he has been stubborn: Tyranny, whether in the Soviet Union or the Middle East, must always be made to bow before democracy. Drawing on a lifetime of experience of democracy and its absence, Sharansky believes that only democracy can safeguard the well-being of societies. For Sharansky, when it comes to democracy, politics is not a matter of left and right, but right and wrong. This is a passionately argued book from a man who carries supreme moral authority to make the case he does here: that the spread of democracy everywhere is not only possible, but also essential to the survival of our civilization. His argument is sure to stir controversy on all sides; this is arguably the great issue of our times.
