Download or read book The Origins of Democratic Thinking written by Cynthia Farrar and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1988 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr Farrar argues that the development of political theory accompanied the growth of democracy at Athens in the fifth century BC. By analysing the writings of Protagoras, Thucydides and Democritus in the context of political developments and speculation about the universe, she reveals the existence of a distinctive approach to the characterisation of democratic order, and in doing so demonstrates the virtues of Thucydides' historical conception of politics.
Download or read book Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece written by Kurt A. Raaflaub and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A balanced, high-quality analysis of the developing nature of Athenian political society and its relationship to 'democracy' as a timeless concept."—Mark Munn, author of The School of History
Download or read book The Colonial American Origins of Modern Democratic Thought written by J. S. Maloy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-22 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first examination in almost forty years of political ideas in the seventeenth-century American colonies reaches some surprising conclusions about the history of democratic theory more generally. The origins of a distinctively modern kind of thinking about democracy can be located, not in revolutionary America and France in the later eighteenth century, but in the tiny New England colonies in the middle seventeenth. The key feature of this democratic rebirth was honoring not only the principle of popular sovereignty through regular elections but also the principle of accountability through non-electoral procedures for the auditing and impeachment of elected officers. By staking its institutional identity entirely on elections, modern democratic thought has misplaced the sense of robust popular control which originally animated it.
Download or read book Empire of the People written by Adam Dahl and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American democracy owes its origins to the colonial settlement of North America by Europeans. Since the birth of the republic, observers such as Alexis de Tocqueville and J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur have emphasized how American democratic identity arose out of the distinct pattern by which English settlers colonized the New World. Empire of the People explores a new way of understanding this process—and in doing so, offers a fundamental reinterpretation of modern democratic thought in the Americas. In Empire of the People, Adam Dahl examines the ideological development of American democratic thought in the context of settler colonialism, a distinct form of colonialism aimed at the appropriation of Native land rather than the exploitation of Native labor. By placing the development of American political thought and culture in the context of nineteenth-century settler expansion, his work reveals how practices and ideologies of Indigenous dispossession have laid the cultural and social foundations of American democracy, and in doing so profoundly shaped key concepts in modern democratic theory such as consent, social equality, popular sovereignty, and federalism. To uphold its legitimacy, Dahl also argues, settler political thought must disavow the origins of democracy in colonial dispossession—and in turn erase the political and historical presence of native peoples. Empire of the People traces this thread through the conceptual and theoretical architecture of American democratic politics—in the works of thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Alexis de Tocqueville, John O’Sullivan, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and William Apess. In its focus on the disavowal of Native dispossession in democratic thought, the book provides a new perspective on the problematic relationship between race and democracy—and a different and more nuanced interpretation of the role of settler colonialism in the foundations of democratic culture and society.
Download or read book Democracy and the History of Political Thought written by Patrick N. Cain and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-06-23 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a fresh perspective on current democratic theory and practice by recovering the rich evaluations of democracy in the history of political thought. Each author addresses a single thinker’s reflections on the virtues and defects of democracy and the relationship between democracy and other regimes. Together, these essays explore the tensions within the democratic way of life that arise from an attachment to equality, liberty, citizenship, law, and the divine. Above all, this work aims at recovering a more complex understanding of democracy, connecting the perennial questions of political philosophy to the perplexities and crises of modern democracy.
Download or read book The Decline and Rise of Democracy written by David Stasavage and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer--democratic practices were present in many places, at many other times, from the Americas before European conquest, to ancient Mesopotamia, to precolonial Africa. Delving into the prevalence of early democracy throughout the world, David Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished--and when and why they declined--can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but also about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future."--
Download or read book The Colonial American Origins of Modern Democratic Thought written by Jason Stuart Maloy and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Course of American Democratic Thought written by Ralph Henry Gabriel and published by . This book was released on 1940 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Democracy From Then to Now written by Eric Nilsen and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-05-25 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the fascinating evolution of democracy from then until now - the influence of ancient figures, and the origins of today's political systems. Now more than ever, Democracy has become a compelling conversation topic. But have you ever wondered what has shaped the political systems that govern many societies today? Are you curious about the history of democracy? Or do you wonder how some of the democratic policies developed through the ages? Or maybe you wonder how democracies die? Many people might believe the start of democracy to be the establishment of the United States of America as it threw off the shackles of British rule. Some may even be familiar with the fact that those democratic ideals can be traced back to the teachings and practices of the ancient Greeks and Romans. But is that all there is to it? Studying history will help give you a better understanding of the origins of democracy, how it shaped our current laws and policies, and how democracy works now. Which begs the question: what does history tell us about democracy? And what does it tell us about democracy in the US now? Where did democracy start? How did it develop? What inspired and ignited an entire democratic system to govern societies? In order to understand today's democracy, we need to start from its earliest beginnings by understanding the works of the ancient philosophers who laid the foundations of democracy from the early days. Even looking at the democracy around the world today, it's clear that there are degrees to which countries choose to adhere or stray from democratic ideals. Understanding where these ideals developed from and the development of democracy over time is essential to determining what endangers these ideals in the present. Drawing from recent research and critical arguments on the development of democracy, within these pages, you'll discover: The early years of democracy and the evolution of democracy through the ages Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle - Greek philosophers whose contributions to political theory helped to shape democracy as we now know it today The democratic ideas in Ancient Rome that helped design some of the foundations of modern governments The emergency of a modern parliamentary system that resulted from reforms throughout the Medieval Ages How the Roman Republic created a legacy that continues to endure - and what we can learn from its downfall The evidence that shows widely held beliefs about democracy in the Medieval Era may be mistaken The roots of America's democracy and democracy in America now Case studies - a comparison of democracies around the world today to explore why some countries are fully democratic while others are heavily authoritarian The rising threats to democracy jeopardizing the systems that have been in place in some form for centuries And much more. Democracy has reshaped society from oppressive and authoritarian systems to a more egalitarian one, but the work is still not done. Even today, democracy is still a work in progress, and it will continue to transform as civilizations grow and develop. By understanding the principles behind Democracy and its evolution worldwide, we have a better chance of achieving "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." If you're ready to study the history of democracy today, then scroll up and grab your copy of Democracy From Then to Now.
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 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 Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy written by Benjamin Isakhan and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Re-examines the long and complex history of democracy and broadens the traditional view of this history by complementing it with examples from unexplored or under-examined quarters.
Download or read book Demokratia written by Josiah Ober and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the result of a long and fruitful conversation among practitioners of two very different fields: ancient history and political theory. The topic of the conversation is classical Greek democracy and its contemporary relevance. The nineteen contributors remain diverse in their political commitments and in their analytic approaches, but all have engaged deeply with Greek texts, with normative and historical concerns, and with each others' arguments. The issues and tensions examined here are basic to both history and political theory: revolution versus stability, freedom and equality, law and popular sovereignty, cultural ideals and social practice. While the authors are sharply critical of many aspects of Athenian society, culture, and government, they are united by a conviction that classical Athenian democracy has once again become a centrally important subject for political debate. The contributors are Benjamin R. Barber, Alan Boegehold, Paul Cartledge, Susan Guettel Cole, W. Robert Connor, Carol Dougherty, J. Peter Euben, Mogens H. Hansen, Victor D. Hanson, Carnes Lord, Philip Brook Manville, Ian Morris, Martin Ostwald, Kurt Raaflaub, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, Barry S. Strauss, Robert W. Wallace, Sheldon S. Wolin, and Ellen Meiksins Wood.
Download or read book Thinking Through Transition written by Michal Kope?ek and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first concentrated effort to explore the most recent chapter of East Central European past from the perspective of intellectual history. Post-socialism can be understood both as a period of scarcity and preponderance of ideas, the dramatic eclipsing of the dissident legacy?as well as the older political traditions?and the rise of technocratic and post-political governance. This book, grounded in empirical research sensitive to local contexts, proposes instead a history of adaptations, entanglements, and unintended consequences. In order to enable and invite comparison, the volume is structured around major domains of political thought, some of them generic (liberalism, conservatism, the Left), others (populism and politics of history) deemed typical for post-socialism. However, as shown by the authors, the generic often turns out to be heavily dependent on its immediate setting, and the typical resonates with processes that are anything but vernacular.
Download or read book Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy written by Daron Acemoglu and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. Different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Thus democracy is preferred by the majority of citizens, but opposed by elites. Dictatorship nevertheless is not stable when citizens can threaten social disorder and revolution. In response, when the costs of repression are sufficiently high and promises of concessions are not credible, elites may be forced to create democracy. By democratizing, elites credibly transfer political power to the citizens, ensuring social stability. Democracy consolidates when elites do not have strong incentive to overthrow it. These processes depend on (1) the strength of civil society, (2) the structure of political institutions, (3) the nature of political and economic crises, (4) the level of economic inequality, (5) the structure of the economy, and (6) the form and extent of globalization.
Download or read book Toward Democracy written by James T. Kloppenberg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 909 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9 -- Chapter 10 -- Chapter 11 -- Chapter 12 -- Chapter 13 -- Chapter 14 -- INDEX
Download or read book The Life and Death of Democracy written by John Keane and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 717 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Keane's The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: can we really be sure that democracy had its origins in ancient Greece? How did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling that a bad moon is rising over all the world's democracies? Do they indeed have a future? Or is perhaps democracy fated to melt away, along with our polar ice caps? The work of one of Britain's leading political writers, this is no mere antiquarian history. Stylishly written, this superb book confronts its readers with an entirely fresh and irreverent look at the past, present and future of democracy. It unearths the beginnings of such precious institutions and ideals as government by public assembly, votes for women, the secret ballot, trial by jury and press freedom. It tracks the changing, hotly disputed meanings of democracy and describes quite a few of the extraordinary characters, many of them long forgotten, who dedicated their lives to building or defending democracy. And it explains why democracy is still potentially the best form of government on earth -- and why democracies everywhere are sleepwalking their way into deep trouble.
