Download or read book The Good State written by A. C. Grayling and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-02-27 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The foundations upon which our democracies stand are inherently flawed, vulnerable to corrosion from within. What is the remedy? A. C. Grayling makes the case for a clear, consistent, principled and written constitution, and sets out the reforms necessary – among them addressing the imbalance of power between government and Parliament, imposing fixed terms for MPs, introducing proportional representation and lowering the voting age to 16 (the age at which you can marry, gamble, join the army and must pay taxes if you work) – to ensure the intentions of such a constitution could not be subverted or ignored. As democracies around the world show signs of decay, the issue of what makes a good state, one that is democratic in the fullest sense of the word, could not be more important. To take just one example: by the simplest of measures, neither Britain nor the United States can claim to be truly democratic. The most basic tenet of democracy is that no voice be louder than any other. Yet in our ‘first past the post’ electoral systems a voter supporting a losing candidate is unrepresented, his or her voice unequal to one supporting a winning candidate, who frequently does not gain a majority of the votes cast. This is just one of a number of problems, all of them showing that democratic reform is a necessity in our contemporary world.
Download or read book The Principles of Representative Government written by Bernard Manin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-02-28 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thesis of this original and provocative book is that representative government should be understood as a combination of democratic and undemocratic, aristocratic elements. Professor Manin challenges the conventional view that representative democracy is no more than an indirect form of government by the people, in which citizens elect representatives only because they cannot assemble and govern in person. The argument is developed by examining the historical moments when the present institutional arrangements were chosen from among the then available alternatives. Professor Manin reminds us that while today representative institutions and democracy appear as virtually indistinguishable, when representative government was first established in Europe and America, it was designed in opposition to democracy proper. Drawing on the procedures used in earlier republican systems, from classical Athens to Renaissance Florence, in order to highlight the alternatives that were forsaken, Manin brings to the fore the generally overlooked results of representative mechanisms. These include the elitist aspect of elections and the non-binding character of campaign promises.
Download or read book Open Democracy written by Hélène Landemore and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in public and debating laws set by a randomly selected assembly of several hundred citizens. To the Icelandic Vikings, democracy meant meeting every summer in a field to discuss issues until consensus was reached. Our contemporary representative democracies are very different. Modern parliaments are gated and guarded, and it seems as if only certain people are welcome. Diagnosing what is wrong with representative government and aiming to recover some of the openness of ancient democracies, Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy. Supporting a fresh nonelectoral understanding of democratic representation, Hélène Landemore demonstrates that placing ordinary citizens, rather than elites, at the heart of democratic power is not only the true meaning of a government of, by, and for the people, but also feasible and, more than ever, urgently needed. -- Cover page 4.
Download or read book Representative Democracy written by Nadia Urbinati and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is usually held that representative government is not strictly democratic, since it does not allow the people themselves to directly make decisions. But here, taking as her guide Thomas Paine’s subversive view that “Athens, by representation, would have surpassed her own democracy,” Nadia Urbinati challenges this accepted wisdom, arguing that political representation deserves to be regarded as a fully legitimate mode of democratic decision making—and not just a pragmatic second choice when direct democracy is not possible. As Urbinati shows, the idea that representation is incompatible with democracy stems from our modern concept of sovereignty, which identifies politics with a decision maker’s direct physical presence and the immediate act of the will. She goes on to contend that a democratic theory of representation can and should go beyond these identifications. Political representation, she demonstrates, is ultimately grounded in a continuum of influence and power created by political judgment, as well as the way presence through ideas and speech links society with representative institutions. Deftly integrating the ideas of such thinkers as Rousseau, Kant, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, Paine, and the Marquis de Condorcet with her own, Urbinati constructs a thought-provoking alternative vision of democracy.
Download or read book Democracy written by Inter-parliamentary Union and published by Inter-Parliamentary Union. This book was released on 1998 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Principles to realization - Cherif Bassiouni
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: James T. Kloppenberg presents the history of democracy from the perspective of those who established its principles, offering a fresh look at how ideas about representative government, suffrage, and the principles of self-rule and ideals have shifted over time and place.
Download or read book Elements of Democracy written by Charles F. Bahmueller and published by Center for Civic Education. This book was released on 2007 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book DAC Guidelines and Reference Series Accountability and Democratic Governance Orientations and Principles for Development written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is growing recognition of the need for new approaches to the ways in which donors support accountability, but no broad agreement on what changed practice looks like. This publication aims to provide more clarity on the emerging practice.
Download or read book What Is Individual Freedom written by Joshua Turner and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Individual freedom is the backbone of our democratic system, but it's often misinterpreted as "doing whatever you want." This book takes an in-depth look at how individual freedoms are critical to a vibrant and functioning democracy. The text also highlights how some decisions made in government end up meaning more freedom for some but less for others. Students are shown the difference between freedom to do things and freedom from the actions of others. Readers will also learn how some of the freedoms we take for granted are critical to the way our society works.
Download or read book Democracy Rules written by Jan-Werner Müller and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A much-anticipated guide to saving democracy, from one of our most essential political thinkers. Everyone knows that democracy is in trouble, but do we know what democracy actually is? Jan-Werner Müller, author of the widely translated and acclaimed What Is Populism?, takes us back to basics in Democracy Rules. In this short, elegant volume, he explains how democracy is founded not just on liberty and equality, but also on uncertainty. The latter will sound unattractive at a time when the pandemic has created unbearable uncertainty for so many. But it is crucial for ensuring democracy’s dynamic and creative character, which remains one of its signal advantages over authoritarian alternatives that seek to render politics (and individual citizens) completely predictable. Müller shows that we need to re-invigorate the intermediary institutions that have been deemed essential for democracy’s success ever since the nineteenth century: political parties and free media. Contrary to conventional wisdom, these are not spent forces in a supposed age of post-party populist leadership and post-truth. Müller suggests concretely how democracy’s critical infrastructure of intermediary institutions could be renovated, re-empowering citizens while also preserving a place for professionals such as journalists and judges. These institutions are also indispensable for negotiating a democratic social contract that reverses the secession of plutocrats and the poorest from a common political world.
Download or read book The Warren Court written by Melvin I. Urofsky and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2001-03-06 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey and analysis of the historical context, key figures, and lasting legacy of the Warren Court. Earl Warren served as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1953 until the end of the tumultuous 1960s. This book shows why conservative critics still view this court as out of control and leftist, while its liberal fans still cheer what they view as the court's progressive activism. Among this court's contributions to American life are the rights accorded to the accused in Miranda v. Arizona, the limits it placed on school prayer, and the abolition of school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. To understand such basic American principles as equal protection, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, the rights of the accused, and the right to privacy, every citizen should understand the Warren Court.
Download or read book Is Democracy Possible Here written by Ronald Dworkin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politics in America are polarized and trivialized, perhaps as never before. In Congress, the media, and academic debate, opponents from right and left, the Red and the Blue, struggle against one another as if politics were contact sports played to the shouts of cheerleaders. The result, Ronald Dworkin writes, is a deeply depressing political culture, as ill equipped for the perennial challenge of achieving social justice as for the emerging threats of terrorism. Can the hope for change be realized? Dworkin, one the world's leading legal and political philosophers, identifies and defends core principles of personal and political morality that all citizens can share. He shows that recognizing such shared principles can make substantial political argument possible and help replace contempt with mutual respect. Only then can the full promise of democracy be realized in America and elsewhere. Dworkin lays out two core principles that citizens should share: first, that each human life is intrinsically and equally valuable and, second, that each person has an inalienable personal responsibility for identifying and realizing value in his or her own life. He then shows what fidelity to these principles would mean for human rights, the place of religion in public life, economic justice, and the character and value of democracy. Dworkin argues that liberal conclusions flow most naturally from these principles. Properly understood, they collide with the ambitions of religious conservatives, contemporary American tax and social policy, and much of the War on Terror. But his more basic aim is to convince Americans of all political stripes--as well as citizens of other nations with similar cultures--that they can and must defend their own convictions through their own interpretations of these shared values.
Download or read book Comparative Politics written by John T. Ishiyama and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By revealing the contextual conditions which promote or hinder democratic development, Comparative Politics shows how democracy may not be the best institutional arrangement given a country's unique set of historical, economic, social, cultural and international circumstances. Addresses the contextual conditions which promote or hinder democratic development Reveals that democracy may not be the best institutional arrangement given a country's unique set of historical, economic, social, cultural and international circumstances Applies theories and principles relating to the promotion of the development of democracy to the contemporary case studies
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Political Philosophy written by David Estlund and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-07-19 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume includes 22 new pieces by leading political philosophers, on traditional issues (such as authority and equality) and emerging issues (such as race, and money in politics). The pieces are clear and accessible will interest both students and scholars working in philosophy, political science, law, economics, and more.
Download or read book International Election Principles written by John Hardin Young and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2009 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a practical resource covering standards, rules, and other criteria that apply to elections around the world. The book is designed to help attorneys (and others observing or otherwise participating in the electoral process) understand the general standards and theoretical complexities of the field. Each author presents core principles to explain electoral processes and examines democratic elections in a broader political context. This comprehensive resource will help unite theory and practice.
Download or read book Democracy and the Rule of Law written by Adam Przeworski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-07-21 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the question of why governments sometimes follow the law and other times choose to evade the law. The traditional answer of jurists has been that laws have an autonomous causal efficacy: law rules when actions follow anterior norms; the relation between laws and actions is one of obedience, obligation, or compliance. Contrary to this conception, the authors defend a positive interpretation where the rule of law results from the strategic choices of relevant actors. Rule of law is just one possible outcome in which political actors process their conflicts using whatever resources they can muster: only when these actors seek to resolve their conflicts by recourse to la, does law rule. What distinguishes 'rule-of-law' as an institutional equilibrium from 'rule-by-law' is the distribution of power. The former emerges when no one group is strong enough to dominate the others and when the many use institutions to promote their interest.
Download or read book Not for Profit written by Martha C. Nussbaum and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A passionate defense of the humanities from one of today's foremost public intellectuals In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad. We increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable, productive, and empathetic individuals. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world. In a new preface, Nussbaum explores the current state of humanistic education globally and shows why the crisis of the humanities has far from abated. Translated into over twenty languages, Not for Profit draws on the stories of troubling—and hopeful—global educational developments. Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.
