Download or read book Unequal and Unrepresented written by Kay Lehman Schlozman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How American political participation is increasingly being shaped by citizens who wield more resources The Declaration of Independence proclaims equality as a foundational American value. However, Unequal and Unrepresented finds that political voice in America is not only unequal but also unrepresentative. Those who are well educated and affluent carry megaphones. The less privileged speak in a whisper. Relying on three decades of research and an enormous wealth of information about politically active individuals and organizations, Kay Schlozman, Henry Brady, and Sidney Verba offer a concise synthesis and update of their groundbreaking work on political participation. The authors consider the many ways that citizens in American democracy can influence public outcomes through political voice: by voting, getting involved in campaigns, communicating directly with public officials, participating online or offline, acting alone and in organizations, and investing their time and money. Socioeconomic imbalances characterize every form of political voice, but the advantage to the advantaged is especially pronounced when it comes to any form of political expression--for example, lobbying legislators or making campaign donations—that relies on money as an input. With those at the top of the ladder increasingly able to spend lavishly in politics, political action anchored in financial investment weighs ever more heavily in what public officials hear. Citing real-life examples and examining inequalities from multiple perspectives, Unequal and Unrepresented shows how disparities in political voice endanger American democracy today.

Download or read book Affluence and Influence written by Martin Gilens and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-22 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why policymaking in the United States privileges the rich over the poor Can a country be a democracy if its government only responds to the preferences of the rich? In an ideal democracy, all citizens should have equal influence on government policy—but as this book demonstrates, America's policymakers respond almost exclusively to the preferences of the economically advantaged. Affluence and Influence definitively explores how political inequality in the United States has evolved over the last several decades and how this growing disparity has been shaped by interest groups, parties, and elections. With sharp analysis and an impressive range of data, Martin Gilens looks at thousands of proposed policy changes, and the degree of support for each among poor, middle-class, and affluent Americans. His findings are staggering: when preferences of low- or middle-income Americans diverge from those of the affluent, there is virtually no relationship between policy outcomes and the desires of less advantaged groups. In contrast, affluent Americans' preferences exhibit a substantial relationship with policy outcomes whether their preferences are shared by lower-income groups or not. Gilens shows that representational inequality is spread widely across different policy domains and time periods. Yet Gilens also shows that under specific circumstances the preferences of the middle class and, to a lesser extent, the poor, do seem to matter. In particular, impending elections—especially presidential elections—and an even partisan division in Congress mitigate representational inequality and boost responsiveness to the preferences of the broader public. At a time when economic and political inequality in the United States only continues to rise, Affluence and Influence raises important questions about whether American democracy is truly responding to the needs of all its citizens.

Download or read book Model Rules of Professional Conduct written by American Bar Association. House of Delegates and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

Download or read book Voice and Equality written by Sidney Verba and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1995-09-26 with total page 668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book confirms the idea put forth by Tocqueville that American democracy is rooted in civic voluntarism—citizens’ involvement in family, work, school, and religion, as well as in their political participation as voters, campaigners, protesters, or community activists. The authors analyze civic activity with a massive survey of 15,000 people.

Download or read book Punishment Without Crime written by Alexandra Natapoff and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revelatory account of the misdemeanor machine that unjustly brands millions of Americans as criminals. Punishment Without Crime offers an urgent new interpretation of inequality and injustice in America by examining the paradigmatic American offense: the lowly misdemeanor. Based on extensive original research, legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff reveals the inner workings of a massive petty offense system that produces over 13 million cases each year. People arrested for minor crimes are swept through courts where defendants often lack lawyers, judges process cases in mere minutes, and nearly everyone pleads guilty. This misdemeanor machine starts punishing people long before they are convicted; it punishes the innocent; and it punishes conduct that never should have been a crime. As a result, vast numbers of Americans -- most of them poor and people of color -- are stigmatized as criminals, impoverished through fines and fees, and stripped of drivers' licenses, jobs, and housing. For too long, misdemeanors have been ignored. But they are crucial to understanding our punitive criminal system and our widening economic and racial divides. A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018

Download or read book The Unheavenly Chorus written by Kay Lehman Schlozman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 727 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the current state of democracy in the United States, 'The Unheavenly Chorus' looks at the political participation of individual citizens - alongside the political advocacy of thousands of organized interests - in order to demonstrate that American democracy is marred by ingrained and persistent class-based inequality.

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 Designing Social Inquiry written by Gary King and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1994-05-22 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designing Social Inquiry focuses on improving qualitative research, where numerical measurement is either impossible or undesirable. What are the right questions to ask? How should you define and make inferences about causal effects? How can you avoid bias? How many cases do you need, and how should they be selected? What are the consequences of unavoidable problems in qualitative research, such as measurement error, incomplete information, or omitted variables? What are proper ways to estimate and report the uncertainty of your conclusions?

Download or read book How to Save a Constitutional Democracy written by Tom Ginsburg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-10-05 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracies are in danger. Around the world, a rising wave of populist leaders threatens to erode the core structures of democratic self-rule. In the United States, the tenure of Donald Trump has seemed decisive turning point for many. What kind of president intimidates jurors, calls the news media the “enemy of the American people,” and seeks foreign assistance investigating domestic political rivals? Whatever one thinks of President Trump, many think the Constitution will safeguard us from lasting damage. But is that assumption justified? How to Save a Constitutional Democracy mounts an urgent argument that we can no longer afford to be complacent. Drawing on a rich array of other countries’ experiences with democratic backsliding, Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Z. Huq show how constitutional rules can both hinder and hasten the decline of democratic institutions. The checks and balances of the federal government, a robust civil society and media, and individual rights—such as those enshrined in the First Amendment—often fail as bulwarks against democratic decline. The sobering reality for the United States, Ginsburg and Huq contend, is that the Constitution’s design makes democratic erosion more, not less, likely. Its structural rigidity has had unforeseen consequence—leaving the presidency weakly regulated and empowering the Supreme Court conjure up doctrines that ultimately facilitate rather than inhibit rights violations. Even the bright spots in the Constitution—the First Amendment, for example—may have perverse consequences in the hands of a deft communicator who can degrade the public sphere by wielding hateful language banned in many other democracies. We—and the rest of the world—can do better. The authors conclude by laying out practical steps for how laws and constitutional design can play a more positive role in managing the risk of democratic decline.

Download or read book Inequality and Democratization written by Ben W. Ansell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research on the economic origins of democracy and dictatorship has shifted away from the impact of growth and turned toward the question of how different patterns of growth - equal or unequal - shape regime change. This book offers a new theory of the historical relationship between economic modernization and the emergence of democracy on a global scale, focusing on the effects of land and income inequality. Contrary to most mainstream arguments, Ben W. Ansell and David J. Samuels suggest that democracy is more likely to emerge when rising, yet politically disenfranchised, groups demand more influence because they have more to lose, rather than when threats of redistribution to elite interests are low.

Download or read book Citizen Politics written by Russell J. Dalton and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2018-12-13 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now, more than ever, people drive the democratic process. What people think of their government and its leaders, how (or whether) they vote, and what they do or say about a host of political issues greatly affect the further strengthening or erosion of democracy and democratic ideals. This fully updated, shorter Seventh Edition of Citizen Politics continues to offer the only truly comparative study of political attitudes and behavior in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany. In addition to its comprehensive, thematic examination of political values, political activity, voting, and public images of government within a cross-national context, the updated edition of this bestseller explores how cultural issues, populism, Trump and far right parties are reshaping politics in contemporary democracies. All chapters have been updated with the latest research and empirical evidence. Further, Dalton includes recent research on citizens’ political behavior in USA, Britain, France, and Germany, as well as new evidence from national election studies in USA 2016, Britain 2017, France 2017, and Germany 2017.

Download or read book Inequality Reexamined written by Amartya Sen and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1995-03-15 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The noted economist and philosopher Amartya Sen argues that the dictum “all people are created equal” serves largely to deflect attention from the fact that we differ in age, gender, talents, and physical abilities as well as in material advantages and social background. He argues for concentrating on higher and more basic values: individual capabilities and freedom to achieve objectives. By concentrating on the equity and efficiency of social arrangements in promoting freedoms and capabilities of individuals, Sen adds an important new angle to arguments about such vital issues as gender inequalities, welfare policies, affirmative action, and public provision of health care and education.

Download or read book The Turnout Gap written by Bernard L. Fraga and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Persistent racial/ethnic gaps in voter turnout produce elections that are increasingly unrepresentative of the wishes of all Americans.

Download or read book On Political Equality written by Robert A. Dahl and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, the eminent psychoanalyst Leonard Shengold looks at why some people are resistant to change, even when it seems to promise a change for the better. Drawing on a lifetime of clinical experience as well as wide readings of world literature, Shengold shows how early childhood relationships with parents can lead to a powerful conviction that change means loss. Dr. Shengold, who is well known for his work on the lasting affects of childhood trauma and child abuse in such seminal books as Soul Murder and Soul Murder Revisited, continues his exploration into the consequences of early psychological injury and loss. In the examples of his patients and in the lives and work of such figures as Edna St. Vincent Millay, William Wordsworth, and Henrik Ibsen, Shengold looks at the different ways in which unconscious impressions connected with early experiences and fantasies about parents are integrated into individual lives. He shows the difficulties he encounters with his patients in raising these memories to the conscious level where they can be known and owned; and he also shows, in his survey of literary figures, how these memories can become part of the creative process. Haunted by Parents offers a deeply humane reflection on the values and limitations of therapy, on memory and the lingering effects of the past, and on the possibility of recognizing the promise of the future.

Download or read book The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2020-01-24 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mentorship is a catalyst capable of unleashing one's potential for discovery, curiosity, and participation in STEMM and subsequently improving the training environment in which that STEMM potential is fostered. Mentoring relationships provide developmental spaces in which students' STEMM skills are honed and pathways into STEMM fields can be discovered. Because mentorship can be so influential in shaping the future STEMM workforce, its occurrence should not be left to chance or idiosyncratic implementation. There is a gap between what we know about effective mentoring and how it is practiced in higher education. The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM studies mentoring programs and practices at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It explores the importance of mentorship, the science of mentoring relationships, mentorship of underrepresented students in STEMM, mentorship structures and behaviors, and institutional cultures that support mentorship. This report and its complementary interactive guide present insights on effective programs and practices that can be adopted and adapted by institutions, departments, and individual faculty members.

Download or read book A People s History of the United States written by Howard Zinn and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2003-02-04 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools -- with its emphasis on great men in high places -- to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles -- the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality -- were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. Revised, updated, and featuring a new after, word by the author, this special twentieth anniversary edition continues Zinn's important contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history.

Download or read book Free Justice written by Sara Mayeux and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day, in courtrooms around the United States, thousands of criminal defendants are represented by public defenders--lawyers provided by the government for those who cannot afford private counsel. Though often taken for granted, the modern American public defender has a surprisingly contentious history--one that offers insights not only about the "carceral state," but also about the contours and compromises of twentieth-century liberalism. First gaining appeal amidst the Progressive Era fervor for court reform, the public defender idea was swiftly quashed by elite corporate lawyers who believed the legal profession should remain independent from the state. Public defenders took hold in some localities but not yet as a nationwide standard. By the 1960s, views had shifted. Gideon v. Wainwright enshrined the right to counsel into law and the legal profession mobilized to expand the ranks of public defenders nationwide. Yet within a few years, lawyers had already diagnosed a "crisis" of underfunded, overworked defenders providing inadequate representation--a crisis that persists today. This book shows how these conditions, often attributed to recent fiscal emergencies, have deep roots, and it chronicles the intertwined histories of constitutional doctrine, big philanthropy, professional in-fighting, and Cold War culture that made public defenders ubiquitous but embattled figures in American courtrooms.