Download or read book The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy written by Benjamin Studebaker and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-03-17 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that American democracy is in crisis. The economic system is slowly subjecting Americans of nearly all income levels and backgrounds to enormous amounts of stress. The United States lacks the state capacity required to alleviate this stress, and politicians increasingly find that if they promise to solve economic problems, they are likely to disappoint voters. Instead, they encourage voters to blame each other. The crisis cannot be solved, the economy cannot be set right, and democracy cannot be saved. But American democracy cannot be killed, either. Americans can’t imagine any compelling alternative political systems. And so, American democracy continues on, in a deeply unsatisfying way. Americans invent ever-more elaborate coping mechanisms in a desperate bid to go on. But it becomes increasingly clear that the way is shut. The American political system was made by those who are dead, and the dead keep it.
Download or read book The Crisis of American Democracy Essays on a Failing Institution written by Leland Harper and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in “The Crisis of American Democracy: Essays on a Failing Institution” seek to answer central questions about American democracy, such as: if American democracy is failing, what are the causes of this failure? What are the consequences? And what can be done to fix it? These standalone essays present diverse perspectives on some of the impediments to achieving a true democracy in the present-day United States of America, as well as prescriptions for overcoming these obstacles. Leading academics from across North America, contribute their perspectives on this timely debate.
Download or read book Four Threats written by Suzanne Mettler and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An urgent, historically-grounded take on the four major factors that undermine American democracy, and what we can do to address them. While many Americans despair of the current state of U.S. politics, most assume that our system of government and democracy itself are invulnerable to decay. Yet when we examine the past, we find that the United States has undergone repeated crises of democracy, from the earliest days of the republic to the present. In Four Threats, Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman explore five moments in history when democracy in the U.S. was under siege: the 1790s, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Depression, and Watergate. These episodes risked profound—even fatal—damage to the American democratic experiment. From this history, four distinct characteristics of disruption emerge. Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power—alone or in combination—have threatened the survival of the republic, but it has survived—so far. What is unique, and alarming, about the present moment in American politics is that all four conditions exist. This convergence marks the contemporary era as a grave moment for democracy. But history provides a valuable repository from which we can draw lessons about how democracy was eventually strengthened—or weakened—in the past. By revisiting how earlier generations of Americans faced threats to the principles enshrined in the Constitution, we can see the promise and the peril that have led us to today and chart a path toward repairing our civic fabric and renewing democracy.
Download or read book Four Crises of American Democracy written by Alasdair Scott Roberts and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "crisis of representation" occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and was centered on the question of whether the people really controlled their government. This period was dominated by fears of plutocracy and debates about the rights of African Americans, women and immigrants. The "crisis of mastery" spanned the years 1917-1948, and was preoccupied with building administrative capabilities so that government could improve its control of economic and international affairs. The "crisis of discipline," beginning in the 1970s, was triggered by the perception that voters and special interests were overloading governments with unreasonable demands. In the final part of his analysis, Roberts asks whether the United States is entering a "crisis of anticipation," in which the question is whether democracies can handle long-term problems like global warming effectively.
Download or read book The Crisis of American Democracy Essays on a Failing Institution written by Leland Harper and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in "The Crisis of American Democracy: Essays on a Failing Institution" seek to answer central questions about American democracy, such as: if American democracy is failing, what are the causes of this failure? What are the consequences? And what can be done to fix it? These standalone essays present diverse perspectives on some of the impediments to achieving a true democracy in the present-day United States of America, as well as prescriptions for overcoming these obstacles. Leading academics from across North America, contribute their perspectives on this timely debate.
Download or read book Of For and By the People written by K.Sabeel Rahman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a richly researched yet concrete agenda for addressing the current crises of American democracy.
Download or read book Is American Democracy in Crisis written by Dionne, Jr. (E.J.) and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-28 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Our country is now as close to crossing the line from democracy to autocracy as it has been in our lifetimes." -- E. J. Dionne, Jr. It is the public debate of the moment: is Donald Trump precipitating a crisis of American democracy? For some the answer is an emphatic "yes." Trump's disregard for the institutions and political norms of U.S. democracy is imperiling the Republic. The sooner his presidency collapses the sooner the healing can begin and the ship of state righted. For others Trump is not the villain in this drama. Rather, his young presidency is the conduit, not the cause, of Americans' deep-seated anger towards a privileged and self-dealing Washington elite. Trump's disruption of politics as usual is what America needs to start the process of restoring democracy by the people, for the people. The twenty-first semi-annual Munk Debate, held on October 12th, 2017, pits award-winning journalist E. J. Dionne, Jr. and influential author and blogger Andrew Sullivan against former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and bestselling author and editor Kimberley Strassel to debate the current crisis of American democracy.
Download or read book The Demise of American Democracy written by William Durland and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers evidence of the disintegration and transformation of democratic principles and powers with evidence of domestic and international examples such as the dismantling of domestic representaitive government and disregard and disuse of international organizations.
Download or read book American Democracy in Peril written by William E. Hudson and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this Eighth Edition of American Democracy in Peril, author William E. Hudson provides a perceptive analysis of the challenges our democracy faces in the current era: economic crisis, partisan gridlock, rising economic inequality, and continued military conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere. By introducing the history of democratic theory in terms of four “models” of democracy, he provides readers with a set of criteria against which to evaluate the challenges discussed later. This provocative book offers a structured, yet critical examination of the American political system, designed to stimulate students to consider how the facts they learn about American politics relate to democratic ideals.
Download or read book American Democracy in Time of Crisis written by Edgar Eugene Robinson and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1934 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Crisis of American Democracy written by David North and published by Mehring Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The re-election of President George W. Bush marks an ominous turning point in American and international politics. Having been returned to power, the most reactionary administration in the history of the United States will escalate its program of international militarism and domestic repression. The volume comprises four lectures offering contemporaneous analysis of the 2000 and 2004 US Presidential elections. Through a detailed historical overview, North establishes that behind the breakdown of democracy in the United States lies the deterioration of the global economic position of American capitalism, and the development of unprecedented levels of wealth concentration and social inequality. The turn to aggressive militarism abroad, and the vast expansion of police state measures arise, he maintains, not from the so-called "terrorist threat," but from the extreme sharpening of social and class tensions within American society itself. The volume also includes an incisive obituary to Ronald Reagan and an assessment of the Kennedy presidency written by North and Bill Van Auken on the 40th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Download or read book The Demise of American Democracy written by William Durland J.D. and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-08-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Demise of American Democracy: Understanding the Crisis and Resisting the Threat, 2nd edition, follows a 2016 1st edition, which explained the crisis and what to do about it, from the Reagan administration to the beginning of the 2016 election campaign. Newt Gingrich's Contract With America in 1994 had extended the conservative attempt to de-democratize America. Nixon's abortive autocratic expansions of presidential powers in the early 1970s culminated in his firing of the Watergate Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox. Cox reflected on the debacle by posing the challenge: "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people to decide." Today a rogue, Tea Party movement, presents us with a similar challenge after the takeover of the once moderate and representative Republican Party. That set the stage for the present crisis in which the government has been faced with its takeover by those who seek its democratic demise as a result of an Electoral College victory by a candidate who received a minority of votes. The election of President Trump and the policies and practices initiated by his administration have made more intense the movement to replace democracy with a conservative autocracy. Americans are now faced with a fundamental attack on the pursuit of justice and the rule of law. A majority has chosen to resist the threat, and to look forward to the restoration of what is being taken away. The story reads like a novel and sounds like a legal brief, summarizing and offering the facts of the attempted demise and alternatives to a dystopian darkness. An eternal light illuminates the way to renew our quest for a more perfect union.
Download or read book Is American Democracy in Crisis written by E.J. Dionne Jr. and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twenty-first semi-annual Munk Debate pits award-winning journalist E. J. Dionne, Jr. and influential author and blogger Andrew Sullivan against former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and bestselling author and editor Kimberley Strassel to debate the current crisis of American democracy. “Our country is now as close to crossing the line from democracy to autocracy as it has been in our lifetimes.” — E. J. Dionne, Jr. It is the public debate of the moment: is Donald Trump precipitating a crisis of American democracy? For some the answer is an emphatic “yes.” Trump’s disregard for the institutions and political norms of U.S. democracy is imperiling the Republic. The sooner his presidency collapses the sooner the healing can begin and the ship of state righted. For others Trump is not the villain in this drama. Rather, his young presidency is the conduit, not the cause, of Americans’ deep-seated anger towards a privileged and self-dealing Washington elite. Trump’s disruption of politics as usual is what America needs to start the process of restoring democracy by the people, for the people.
Download or read book The Crisis in American Democracy written by John Harms and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Presidents Populism and the Crisis of Democracy written by William G. Howell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To counter the threat America faces, two political scientists offer “clear constitutional solutions that break sharply with the conventional wisdom” (Steven Levitsky, New York Times–bestselling coauthor of How Democracies Die). Has American democracy’s long, ambitious run come to an end? Possibly yes. As William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe argue in this trenchant new analysis of modern politics, the United States faces a historic crisis that threatens our system of self-government—and if democracy is to be saved, the causes of the crisis must be understood and defused. The most visible cause is Donald Trump, who has used his presidency to attack the nation’s institutions and violate its democratic norms. Yet Trump is but a symptom of causes that run much deeper: social forces like globalization, automation, and immigration that for decades have generated economic harms and cultural anxieties that our government has been wholly ineffective at addressing. Millions of Americans have grown angry and disaffected, and populist appeals have found a receptive audience. These were the drivers of Trump’s dangerous presidency, and they’re still there for other populists to weaponize. What can be done? The disruptive forces of modernity cannot be stopped. The solution lies, instead, in having a government that can deal with them—which calls for aggressive new policies, but also for institutional reforms that enhance its capacity for effective action. The path to progress is filled with political obstacles, including an increasingly populist, anti-government Republican Party. It is hard to be optimistic. But if the challenge is to be met, we need reforms of the presidency itself—reforms that harness the promise of presidential power for effective government, but firmly protect against that power being put to anti-democratic ends.
Download or read book Virtualpolitik written by Elizabeth Mathews Losh and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government media-making, from official websites to whistleblowers' e-mail, and its sometimes unintended consequences. Today government agencies not only have official Web sites but also sponsor moderated chats, blogs, digital video clips, online tutorials, videogames, and virtual tours of national landmarks. Sophisticated online marketing campaigns target citizens with messages from the government--even as officials make news with digital gaffes involving embarrassing e-mails, instant messages, and videos. In Virtualpolitik, Elizabeth Losh closely examines the government's digital rhetoric in such cases and its dual role as mediamaker and regulator. Looking beyond the usual focus on interfaces, operations, and procedures, Losh analyzes the ideologies revealed in government's digital discourse, its anxieties about new online practices, and what happens when officially sanctioned material is parodied, remixed, or recontextualized by users. Losh reports on a video game that panicked the House Intelligence Committee, pedagogic and therapeutic digital products aimed at American soldiers, government Web sites in the weeks and months following 9/11, PowerPoint presentations by government officials and gadflies, e-mail as a channel for whistleblowing, digital satire of surveillance practices, national digital libraries, and computer-based training for health professionals. Losh concludes that the government's "virtualpolitik"--its digital realpolitik aimed at preserving its own power--is focused on regulation, casting as criminal such common online activities as file sharing, video-game play, and social networking. This policy approach, she warns, indefinitely postpones building effective institutions for electronic governance, ignores constituents' need to shape electronic identities to suit their personal politics, and misses an opportunity to learn how citizens can have meaningful interaction with the virtual manifestations of the state.
Download or read book A Progressive History of American Democracy Since 1945 written by Chris J. Magoc and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-29 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Progressive History of American Democracy Since 1945: American Dreams, Hard Realities offers a social, political, and cultural history of the United States since World War II. Unpacking a period of profound transformation unprecedented in the national experience, this book takes a synthetic approach to the history of the 1940s to the present day. It examines how Americans descended from a mid-century apogee of boundless expectations to the unsettling premise that our contemporary historical moment is fraught with a sense of crisis and national failure. The book’s narrative explores the question of decline and more importantly, how the history of this transformation can point the way toward a recovery of shared national values. Chris J. Magoc also gives extensive treatments to the following: Grassroots movements that have expanded the meaning of American democracy, from the 1950s human rights struggle in the South to contemporary movements to confront systemic racism and the existential crisis of climate change. The resilience of American democracy in the face of antidemocratic forces. The impacts of a decades-long economic transformation. The consequences of America’s expanding global military footprint and national security state. Fracturing of a nation once held together by a post-war liberal consensus and broadly shared societal goals to an America facing an attack from within on empirical truth and democracy itself. This book will be of interest to students of modern U.S. history, social history, and American Studies, and general readers interested in recent U.S. history.
