Download or read book Democracy in Theory and Practice written by Frederick G. Whelan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 1396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy in Theory and Practice presents an authoritative overview of democratic theory today. Its distinctive approach links theory to practice, emphasizing the wide variety of institutions and procedures through which core democratic principles are implemented and the normative and practical dimensions of the choices to be made among these alternatives. Designed for courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level, the book features eighteen chapters organized thematically and divided into sections and subsections for easy reference; historical and current examples, citations for specific ideas, annotated references, and further readings throughout enhance the volume's utility for students, scholars, and researchers. Sidebars give biographical sketches of classic theorists and democratic ideas from the US founders and constitutional tradition. Featured topics discussed include: Majority Rule; Participation; Deliberation; Accountability; Representation; Constitutionalism; Electoral Laws; Parties; Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Functions. The Boundary Problem; The "All-Affected" Principle; Contested Senses of Liberal and Procedural Democracy; The Pros and Cons of Term Limits; Proportional Representation; Referendums; Problems of Democratic Transparency and Reversibility. Written by a leading authority in the field, Frederick G. Whelan encourages us to think of the many alternative ways of putting democracy into practice and of these alternatives as requiring choices. This diversity means that there is no unique or correct democratic outcome from a given set of preferences, since outcomes are shaped by the methods followed in reaching them.
Download or read book Achieving Democracy written by Mary Fran T. Malone and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-12-24 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy is the ability to participate freely and equally in the political and economic affairs of the country. Americans have relied on philosophical pragmatism and on the impulse of political progressivism to express those creedal democratic values. Achieving Democracy argues that, in the last 30 years, however, by focusing on free markets and small government, America has since lost its grasp on these crucial democratic values. Economically, the vast majority of Americans have been made worse off due to a historically unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the top one percent. Politically, partisan gridlock has hampered efforts to seek fairer taxes, responsive and effective regulation, reliable health care, and better education, among other needs. Achieving Democracy critiques the history of the last 30 years of neoliberal government in the United States, and enables an understanding of the dynamic and changing nature of contemporary government and the future of the regulatory state. Sidney A. Shapiro and Joseph P. Tomain demonstrate how lessons from the past can be applied today to regain essential democratic losses within the successful framework of a progressive government to ultimately construct a good society for all citizens.
Download or read book Democracy written by Sanford A Lakoff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-12 with total page 611 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reviews the historical development of democracy and the backlash against it, the theoretical character of modern democracy, the practical problems of establishing and maintaining democracy, and the meaning of democracy and its prospects.
Download or read book What s Wrong with Democracy written by Loren J. Samons and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-04-23 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is unlike any recent work I know of. It offers a challenging, often refreshing, and what will certainly be a controversial assessment of classical Athenian democracy and its significance to modern America. Samons is willing to tread where few other classicists are willing to go in print. He reminds readers that the Athenian democracy offers just as many negative lessons as positive ones, and topics like the popular vote, the dangers of state payments to individual citizens, the naturally acquisitive foreign policy of democratic governments, and the place of religion in democracy all come up for discussion and criticism. Samons has written an original and very provocative book."—James Sickinger, author of Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens "Professor Samons' lively and challenging account of ancient Athens raises important questions about democracy, ancient and modern. It will surely arouse keen interest and debate."—Donald Kagan, author of The Peloponnesian War "In this elegantly written, carefully researched, and perceptive book, Samons presents a penetrating analysis of ancient Athenian democracy's dark sides. His book is as much about the errors and weaknesses of our own political system as it is about those of ancient Athens. Whether or not we agree with his critique and conclusions, this book is not merely thought-provoking: it is annoyingly discomforting, forcing us to re-examine firm beliefs and to discard easy solutions."—Kurt A. Raaflaub, author of Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece "In this marvelously unfashionable book, Samons debunks much of what passes in the current-day academy as scholarship on classical Athens, demonstrating that it is an ideologically-driven apology for a radically defective form of government. In the process, he casts light on the perspicacity of America's founding fathers and on the unthinking populism that threatens in our own day to ruin their legacy."—Paul A. Rahe, author of Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution "We are in the greatest age of democracy since antiquity and in the most need of guidance about the wisdom of government by majority vote. Precisely for that reason Professor Samons offers a bold and unbridled look at the nature and history of democracies, ancient and modern. He reminds us that we are capable of doing as much evil as good when constitutional protections and republican oversight are not there to moderate the instant desires of the majority. This is an engaging, provocative, and timely study of ancient Athens and modern America that should serve as a cautionary reminder to both romantic scholars and zealous diplomats."—Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Other Greeks
Download or read book The Boundaries of Freedom of Expression Order in American Democracy written by Thomas R. Hensley and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Monday, May 4th, 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard fired 61 rounds of bullets into the Kent State University students protesting about the invasion of Cambodia. This work develops the ideas of the first symposium on American democracy established to commemorate the tragedy.
Download or read book The Political Thought of America s Founding Feminists written by Lisa Pace Vetter and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: political theory and the founding of American feminism -- Lifting the "Claud-Lorraine tint" over the Republic: Frances Wright's critique -- Of society and manners in America -- Harriet Martineau on the theory and practice of democracy in America -- Facing the "sledge hammer of truth": Angelina Grimke and the rhetoric of reform -- Sarah Grimke's Quaker liberalism -- "The most belligerent non-resistant": Lucretia Mott on women's rights -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton's rhetoric of ridicule and reform -- The shadow and the substance of Sojourner Truth -- Conclusion
Download or read book Designing a Polity written by James W. Ceaser and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2010-12-16 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Designing a Polity, James W. Ceaser, one of our leading scholars of American political development, argues for the continuing central role of the Founding within the study of American government. Drawing on essays published over the past 10 years, extensively updated and revised to reflect current politics, Ceaser engages the Founding Fathers, particularly James Madison, emphasizes Alexis de Tocqueville as a model of political inquiry, critiques current and recent theorists such as Richard Rorty and Jacques Derrida, and explores the varieties of contemporary conservative thought. Designing a Polity offers a rich exploration of the core values of political sciences that will be of special interest to scholars and students of American political development, Constitutional thought, and contemporary political thought.
Download or read book Imagining Deliberative Democracy in the Early American Republic written by Sandra M. Gustafson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-05-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deliberation, in recent years, has emerged as a form of civic engagement worth reclaiming. In this persuasive book, Sandra M. Gustafson combines historical literary analysis and political theory in order to demonstrate that current democratic practices of deliberation are rooted in the civic rhetoric that flourished in the early American republic. Though the U.S. Constitution made deliberation central to republican self-governance, the ethical emphasis on group deliberation often conflicted with the rhetorical focus on persuasive speech. From Alexis de Tocqueville’s ideas about the deliberative basis of American democracy through the works of Walt Whitman, John Dewey, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., Gustafson shows how writers and speakers have made the aesthetic and political possibilities of deliberation central to their autobiographies, manifestos, novels, and orations. Examining seven key writers from the early American republic—including James Fenimore Cooper, David Crockett, and Daniel Webster—whose works of deliberative imagination explored the intersections of style and democratic substance, Gustafson offers a mode of historical and textual analysis that displays the wide range of resources imaginative language can contribute to political life.
Download or read book Deliberative Democracy between Theory and Practice written by Michael A. Neblo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a model to bridge the differences between political theorists and social scientists, focusing on deliberative practices.
Download or read book Deliberative Democracy in America written by Ethan J. Leib and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are taught in civics class that the Constitution provides for three basic branches of government: executive, judicial, and legislative. While the President and Congress as elected by popular vote are representative, can they really reflect accurately the will and sentiment of the populace? Or do money and power dominate everyday politics to the detriment of true self-governance? Is there a way to put &"We the people&" back into government? Ethan Leib thinks there is and offers this blueprint for a fourth branch of government as a way of giving the people a voice of their own. While drawing on the rich theoretical literature about deliberative democracy, Leib concentrates on designing an institutional scheme for embedding deliberation in the practice of American democratic government. At the heart of his scheme is a process for the adjudication of issues of public policy by assemblies of randomly selected citizens convened to debate and vote on the issues, resulting in the enactment of laws subject both to judicial review and to possible veto by the executive and legislative branches. The &"popular&" branch would fulfill a purpose similar to the ballot initiative and referendum but avoid the shortcomings associated with those forms of direct democracy. Leib takes special pains to show how this new branch would be integrated with the already existing governmental and political institutions of our society, including administrative agencies and political parties, and would thus complement rather than supplant them.
Download or read book Demopolis written by Josiah Ober and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-20 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did democracy mean before liberalism? What are the consequences for our lives today? These questions are examined by this book.
Download or read book Government and Markets written by Edward J. Balleisen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 579 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After two generations of emphasis on governmental inefficiency and the need for deregulation, we now see growing interest in the possibility of constructive governance, alongside public calls for new, smarter regulation. Yet there is a real danger that regulatory reforms will be rooted in outdated ideas. As the financial crisis has shown, neither traditional market failure models nor public choice theory, by themselves, sufficiently inform or explain our current regulatory challenges. Regulatory studies, long neglected in an atmosphere focused on deregulatory work, is in critical need of new models and theories that can guide effective policy-making. This interdisciplinary volume points the way toward the modernization of regulatory theory. Its essays by leading scholars move past predominant approaches, integrating the latest research about the interplay between human behavior, societal needs, and regulatory institutions. The book concludes by setting out a potential research agenda for the social sciences.
Download or read book Democracy and Tradition written by Jeffrey Stout and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asking how the citizens of modern democracy can reason with one another, this book carves out a controversial position between those who view religious voices as an anathema to democracy and those who believe democratic society is a moral wasteland because such voices are not heard.
Download or read book American Democracy Promotion written by Michael Cox and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2000-08-31 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does the United States promote democracy? How successful has it been? And why do critics often attack it for doing so? These are at least three of the questions examined in this wide-ranging discussion of American efforts to recast the international order in its own political image. The answers provided by a distinguished group of analysts are as diverse as they are challenging to traditional ways of thinking about US democracy promotion in terms of either a misconstrued moralism or an ideological facade masking some deeper, more sinister purpose. As we enter into the Twenty First century with American hegemony intact, it is vital to understand what drives the world's last remaining superpower. And this original study helps us do precisely that by exploring in detail and depth one of the more contentious, least analysed and most misunderstood aspects of American foreign policy.
Download or read book Constitutional Government and Democracy written by Carl Joachim Friedrich and published by . This book was released on 1937 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Crucible of American Democracy written by Andrew Shankman and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguments over what democracy actually meant in practice and how it should be implemented raged throughout the early American republic. This exploration of the Pennsylvania experience reveals how democracy arose in America and how it came to accommodate capitalism.
Download or read book Participation and Democratic Theory written by Carole Pateman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows that current elitist theories are based on an inadequate understanding of the early writings of democratic theory and that much sociological evidence has been ignored.
