Download or read book The Two Faces of American Freedom written by Aziz Rana and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-07 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Two Faces of American Freedom boldly reinterprets the American political tradition from the colonial period to modern times, placing issues of race relations, immigration, and presidentialism in the context of shifting notions of empire and citizenship. Today, while the U.S. enjoys tremendous military and economic power, citizens are increasingly insulated from everyday decision-making. This was not always the case. America, Aziz Rana argues, began as a settler society grounded in an ideal of freedom as the exercise of continuous self-rule—one that joined direct political participation with economic independence. However, this vision of freedom was politically bound to the subordination of marginalized groups, especially slaves, Native Americans, and women. These practices of liberty and exclusion were not separate currents, but rather two sides of the same coin. However, at crucial moments, social movements sought to imagine freedom without either subordination or empire. By the mid-twentieth century, these efforts failed, resulting in the rise of hierarchical state and corporate institutions. This new framework presented national and economic security as society’s guiding commitments and nurtured a continual extension of America’s global reach. Rana envisions a democratic society that revives settler ideals, but combines them with meaningful inclusion for those currently at the margins of American life.
Download or read book The People written by Margaret Canovan and published by Polity. This book was released on 2005-09-16 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking study sets out to clarify one of the most influential but least studied of all political concepts. Despite continual talk of popular sovereignty, the idea of the people has been neglected by political theorists who have been deterred by its vagueness. Margaret Canovan argues that it deserves serious analysis, and that it's many ambiguities point to unresolved political issues. The book begins by charting the conflicting meanings of the people, especially in Anglo-American usage, and traces the concept's development from the ancient populus Romanus to the present day. The book's main purpose is, however, to analyse the political issues signalled by the people's ambiguities. In the remaining chapters, Margaret Canovan considers their theoretical and practical aspects: Where are the people's boundaries? Is people equivalent to nation, and how is it related to humanity - people in general? Populists aim to 'give power back to the people'; how is populism related to democracy? How can the sovereign people be an immortal collective body, but at the same time be us as individuals? Can we ever see that sovereign people in action? Political myths surround the figure of the people and help to explain its influence; should the people itself be regarded as fictional? This original and accessible study sheds a fresh light on debates about popular sovereignty, and will be an important resource for students and scholars of political theory.
Download or read book The Two Faces of Political Apathy written by Tom DeLuca and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This inclusive study examines the extraordinarily high rates of political nonparticipation in the United States and the political, historical, institutional, and philosophical roots of such widespread apathy. To explain why individuals become committed to political apathy as a political role, Tom DeLuca begins by defining "the two faces of political apathy." The first, rooted in free will, properly places responsibility for nonparticipation in the political process on individuals. Political scientists and journalists, however, too often overlook a second, more insidious face of apathy--a condition created by institutional practices and social and cultural structures that limit participation and political awareness. The public blames our most disenfranchised citizens for their own disenfranchisement. Apathetic citizens blame themselves. DeLuca examines classic and representative explanations of non-participation by political analysts across a range of methodologies and schools of thought. Focusing on their views on the concepts of political power and political participation, he assesses current proposals for reform. He argues that overcoming the second face of apathy requires a strategy of "real political equality," which includes greater equality in the availability of political resources, in setting the political agenda, in clarifying political issues, and in developing a public sphere for more genuine democratic politics. Author note: Tom DeLuca is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. He has been a long-time activist on local and national issues, especially nuclear arms control, and his op-ed pieces on politics have appeared in The New York Times, New York Newsday, The Nation, and The Progressive.
Download or read book The Two Faces of Democracy written by Mary F. Scudder and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The democratic imagination is facing significant challenges. These challenges involve not only deep philosophical questions about the core values of democracy, but also pressing practical issues related to how we should understand and confront the rise of right-wing authoritarian populism. What should our stance be as defenders of democratic life? The two most prominent efforts to orient us here are the deliberative and agonistic models of democracy. The former emphasizes reasoned discussion, but some worry that this exclusive focus overlooks structures of injustice that distort civil deliberation. The latter prioritizes contestation and conflict, but its proponents struggle to explain why this prime orientation to defeating political opponents will not also corrode our commitment to normative democratic restraints, like fairness. This book develops an understanding of the moral core of democracy. In doing so, it illuminates how these two faces of democratic life, the deliberative and agonistic, each has a significant, but constrained, role to play in a more capacious comprehension of what our democratic commitments require of us. The "communicative model" of democracy we propose provides better grounds for facing the challenges of contemporary anti-democratic movements than either the deliberative or agonistic models alone"--
Download or read book Populism written by Margaret Canovan and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P. This book was released on 1981 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Two Faces of Institutional Innovation written by Leonardo Avritzer and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-24 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book evaluates democratic innovations to allow a full analysis of the different practices that have emerged recently in Latin America. These innovations, often viewed in a positive light by a large section of democratic theorists, engendered the idea that all innovations are democratic and all democratic innovations are able to foster citizenship – a view challenged by this work. The book also evaluates the expansion of innovation to the field of judicial institutions. It will benefit democratic theorists by presenting a realistic analysis of the positive and negative aspects of democratic innovation.
Download or read book The Two Faces of Judicial Power written by Benjamin G. Engst and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-17 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows that constitutional courts exercise direct and indirect power on political branches through decision-making. The first face of judicial power is characterized by courts directing political actors to implement judicial decisions in specific ways. The second face leads political actors to anticipate judicial review and draft policies accordingly. The judicial–political interaction originating from both faces is herein formally modeled. A cross-European comparison of pre-conditions of judicial power shows that the German Federal Constitutional Court is a well-suited representative case for a quantitative assessment of judicial power. Multinomial logistic regressions show that the court uses directives when evasion of decisions is costly while accounting for the government’s ability to implement decisions. Causal analyses of the second face of judicial power show that bills exposed to legal signals are drafted accounting for the court. These findings re-shape our understanding of judicialization and shed light on a silent form of judicialization.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Thailand written by Pavin Chachavalpongpun and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Thailand is a timely survey and assessment of the state of contemporary Thailand. While Thailand has changed much in the past decades, this handbook proposes that many of its problems have remained intact or even persistent, particularly problems related to domestic politics. It underlines emerging issues at this critical juncture in the kingdom and focuses on the history, politics, economy, society, culture, religion and international relations of the country. A multidisciplinary approach, with chapters written by experts on Thailand, this handbook is divided into the following sections. History Political and economic landscape Social development International relations Designed for academics, students, libraries, policymakers and general readers in the field of Asian studies, political science, economics and sociology, this invaluable reference work provides an up-to-date account of Thailand and initiates new discussion for future research activities.
Download or read book Beyond Empathy and Inclusion written by Mary F. Scudder and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond Empathy and Inclusion examines how to achieve democratic rule in large pluralistic societies where citizens are deeply divided. Scudder argues that listening is key; in a democracy, citizens do not have to agree with their political opponents, but they do have to listen to them. Being heard is what ensures we have a say in the laws to which we are held. While listening is admittedly difficult, this book investigates how to motivate citizens to listenseriously, attentively, and humbly, even to those with whom they disagree.
Download or read book The Two Faces of Justice written by Jiwei Ci and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-15 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Justice is a human virtue that is at once unconditional and conditional. Under favorable circumstances, we can be motivated to act justly by the belief that we must live up to what justice requires, irrespective of whether we benefit from doing so. But our will to act justly is subject to conditions. We find it difficult to exercise the virtue of justice when others regularly fail to. Even if we appear to have overcome the difficulty, our reluctance often betrays itself in certain moral emotions. In this book, Jiwei Ci explores the dual nature of justice, in an attempt to make unitary sense of key features of justice reflected in its close relation to resentment, punishment, and forgiveness. Rather than pursue a search for normative principles, he probes the human psychology of justice to understand what motivates moral agents who seek to behave justly, and why their desire to be just is as precarious as it is uplifting. A wide-ranging treatment of enduring questions, The Two Faces of Justice can also be read as a remarkably discerning contribution to the Western discourse on justice re-launched in our time by John Rawls.
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 America Amerikkka written by Rosemary Radford Ruether and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America views itself as a nation inhabiting a "promised land" and enjoying a favoured relation with God. This view of unique election has been coupled with racial exclusivism and the marginalization of non-white citizens. America, Amerikkka traces the historical and ideological patterns behind America’s sense of itself. In its examination of America’s "chosenness", the book ranges across the doctrine of the "rights of man" in the 18th and 19th centuries, the role of America in the twentieth century as "global policeman", and the enforcement of neo-colonial relations over the "third world". The volume argues for a vision of global relations between peoples based on justice and mutuality, rather than hegemonic dominance.
Download or read book Democracy in America written by Benjamin I. Page and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-11-17 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More democracy -- Unequal wealth distorts politics -- What has gone wrong -- Thwarting the will of the people -- The political clout of wealthy Americans -- Corporations and interest groups -- Polarized parties and gridlock -- What can be done -- Equal voice for all citizens -- Overcoming gridlock and democratizing institutions -- How to do it -- A social movement for democracy -- Signs of progress
Download or read book The Neoliberal Revolution written by Richard Robison and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-03-28 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book examines the rise of the amalgam of economic and political ideas we know as neo-liberalism and how these became the defining orthodoxy of our times. It investigates the inexorable global spread of market economies and how neo-liberal agendas are accommodated or hijacked in collisions with authoritarian states and populist oligarchies.
Download or read book Machiavellian Democracy written by John P. McCormick and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-31 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intensifying economic and political inequality poses a dangerous threat to the liberty of democratic citizens. Mounting evidence suggests that economic power, not popular will, determines public policy, and that elections consistently fail to keep public officials accountable to the people. McCormick confronts this dire situation through a dramatic reinterpretation of Niccolò Machiavelli's political thought. Highlighting previously neglected democratic strains in Machiavelli's major writings, McCormick excavates institutions through which the common people of ancient, medieval and Renaissance republics constrained the power of wealthy citizens and public magistrates, and he imagines how such institutions might be revived today. It reassesses one of the central figures in the Western political canon and decisively intervenes into current debates over institutional design and democratic reform. McCormick proposes a citizen body that excludes socioeconomic and political elites and grants randomly selected common people significant veto, legislative and censure authority within government and over public officials.
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 The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism written by Michael Oakeshott and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Oakeshott, the foremost British political philosopher of the twentieth century, died in 1990, leaving a substantial collection of unpublished material. Yale University Press is continuing to make available the best of these illuminating works. In this polished and hitherto unknown work, Oakeshott argues that modern politics was constituted out of a debate, persistent through centuries of European political experience down to our own day, over the question "What should governments do?" According to Oakeshott, two different answers have dominated our thought since the fifteenth century. One, exemplified by such thinkers as Rousseau and Marx, expresses a belief in the capacity of human beings to control, design, and monitor all aspects of social and political life, a belief fostered by the intoxicating increase in power available to governments in modern times. On the other hand, sceptics such as Montaigne, Pascal, and Hobbes argued that governments cannot, in principle, produce perfection and that we should prevent concentrations of power that may result in tyrannies that oppress the dignity of the human spirit. Oakeshott exposes the pitfalls of both positions and shows the value of a middle ground that incorporates scepticism with enough faith to avoid total quietism. Readers of Oakeshott will find here the thinking that lies behind his famous definition of politics as "the pursuit of intimations.".
