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Book Democratizing Democracy

Download or read book Democratizing Democracy written by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 843 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The majorconflicts between the Global North and the South can be expected toresult from the confrontation of alternative conceptions of democracy,mainly between liberal or representative democracy and participatorydemocracy. The hegemonic model of democracy, while prevailing on aglobal scale, guarantees no more than low-intensity democracy. Inrecent times, participatory democracy has exhibited a new dynamic,engaging mainly subaltern communities and social groups that fightagainst social exclusion and the suppression of citizenship. In thiscollection of reports from the Global South-India, South Africa,Mozambique, Colombia, and Brazil-De Sousa Santos and his colleaguesshow how, in some cases, the deepening of democracy results from thedevelopment of dual forms of participatory and representativedemocracy, and points to the emergence of transnational networks ofparticipatory democracy initiatives. Such networks pave one of the waysto the reinvention of social emancipation. This is volume 1 of the Reinventing Social Emancipation project, edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

Book Democratizing Our Data

Download or read book Democratizing Our Data written by Julia Lane and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wake-up call for America to create a new framework for democratizing data. Public data are foundational to our democratic system. People need consistently high-quality information from trustworthy sources. In the new economy, wealth is generated by access to data; government's job is to democratize the data playing field. Yet data produced by the American government are getting worse and costing more. In Democratizing Our Data, Julia Lane argues that good data are essential for democracy. Her book is a wake-up call to America to fix its broken public data system.

Book Democratic Evaluation and Democracy

Download or read book Democratic Evaluation and Democracy written by Donna Podems and published by IAP. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic evaluation brings a way of thinking about evaluation’s role in society and in particular, its role in strengthening social justice. Yet the reality of applying it, and what happens when it is applied particularly outside the West, is unclear. Set in South Africa, a newly formed democracy in Southern Africa, the book affords an in-depth journey that immerses a reader into the realities of evaluation and its relation to democracy. The book starts with the broader introductory chapters that set the scene for more detailed ones which bring thorough insights into national government, local government, and civil societies’ experience of evaluation, democratic evaluation and their understanding of how it contributes to strengthening democracy (or not). A teaching case, the book concludes by providing guiding questions that encourage reflection, discussion and learning that ultimately aims to inform practice and theory.

Book Give Children the Vote

Download or read book Give Children the Vote written by John Wall and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, the right to vote has been extended to landowning men, the poor, minorities, women, and young adults. In each case, the meaning of democracy itself has been transformed. The one major group still denied suffrage is the third of humanity who are under 18 years of age. However, children are becoming increasingly active in political movements for climate regulation, labor rights, gun control, transexual identity, and racial justice. And these have led to a growing global movement to eliminate minimum ages of enfranchisement. This book argues that it is time to give children the vote. Using political theory and drawing on childhood studies, it shows why suffrage cannot legitimately be limited according to age, as well as why truly universal voting is beneficial to all and can help save today's crumbling democratic norms. It carefully responds to a wide range of objections concerning competence, knowledge, adult rights, power relations, harms to children, and much more. And it develops a detailed childist theory of voting based on holding elected representatives maximally responsive to the people's different lived experiences. The book also introduces the concept of proxy-claim voting, wherein parents or guardians exercise proxy votes for non-competent persons, both child and adult, until whatever time those persons wish to claim or reclaim the exercise of their vote for themselves. Ultimately, the book maps out a new vision of democratic voting that, by equally empowering children, is at last genuinely democratic.

Book The Third Wave

    Book Details:
  • Author : Samuel P. Huntington
  • Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
  • Release : 2012-09-06
  • ISBN : 0806186046
  • Pages : 388 pages

Download or read book The Third Wave written by Samuel P. Huntington and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-09-06 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1974 and 1990 more than thirty countries in southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. This global democratic revolution is probably the most important political trend in the late twentieth century. In The Third Wave, Samuel P. Huntington analyzes the causes and nature of these democratic transitions, evaluates the prospects for stability of the new democracies, and explores the possibility of more countries becoming democratic. The recent transitions, he argues, are the third major wave of democratization in the modem world. Each of the two previous waves was followed by a reverse wave in which some countries shifted back to authoritarian government. Using concrete examples, empirical evidence, and insightful analysis, Huntington provides neither a theory nor a history of the third wave, but an explanation of why and how it occurred. Factors responsible for the democratic trend include the legitimacy dilemmas of authoritarian regimes; economic and social development; the changed role of the Catholic Church; the impact of the United States, the European Community, and the Soviet Union; and the "snowballing" phenomenon: change in one country stimulating change in others. Five key elite groups within and outside the nondemocratic regime played roles in shaping the various ways democratization occurred. Compromise was key to all democratizations, and elections and nonviolent tactics also were central. New democracies must deal with the "torturer problem" and the "praetorian problem" and attempt to develop democratic values and processes. Disillusionment with democracy, Huntington argues, is necessary to consolidating democracy. He concludes the book with an analysis of the political, economic, and cultural factors that will decide whether or not the third wave continues. Several "Guidelines for Democratizers" offer specific, practical suggestions for initiating and carrying out reform. Huntington's emphasis on practical application makes this book a valuable tool for anyone engaged in the democratization process. At this volatile time in history, Huntington's assessment of the processes of democratization is indispensable to understanding the future of democracy in the world.

Book Democracy in Retreat

Download or read book Democracy in Retreat written by Joshua Kurlantzick and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVSince the end of the Cold War, the assumption among most political theorists has been that as nations develop economically, they will also become more democratic—especially if a vibrant middle class takes root. This assumption underlies the expansion of the European Union and much of American foreign policy, bolstered by such examples as South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and even to some extent Russia. Where democratization has failed or retreated, aberrant conditions take the blame: Islamism, authoritarian Chinese influence, or perhaps the rise of local autocrats./divDIV /divDIVBut what if the failures of democracy are not exceptions? In this thought-provoking study of democratization, Joshua Kurlantzick proposes that the spate of retreating democracies, one after another over the past two decades, is not just a series of exceptions. Instead, it reflects a new and disturbing trend: democracy in worldwide decline. The author investigates the state of democracy in a variety of countries, why the middle class has turned against democracy in some cases, and whether the decline in global democratization is reversible./div

Book Democratization by Elections

Download or read book Democratization by Elections written by Staffan I. Lindberg and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contested, multiparty elections are conventionally viewed as either an indicator of the start of democracy or a measure of its quality. In practice, the role that elections play in the transition from authoritarian rule is much more significant. Using as a starting point Guillermo O’Donnell and Phillipe C. Schmitter’s 1986 classic, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, and Robert Dahl’s original formulation of democratization as the outcome of increasing the costs of repression while decreasing the costs of toleration, this volume subjects to critical empirical tests the thesis that repeated elections positively affect democratic rights and processes. The first section uses global and quantitative regional studies based on new and unique data sets to present and rigorously evaluate the debate on the democratizing power of elections. The second section looks closely at specific electoral mechanisms and types of elections in Africa, post-Communist Europe and Eurasia, Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa to uncover those that support the long-term institutionalization of a democratic transition. The concluding section develops and formalizes a theory of democratization by elections. Each chapter includes in-depth discussions of policy implications and a wealth of statistical information. Featuring contributions by leading scholars of democracy, original research, and worldwide and country-specific data on elections and democracy, this collaborative exploration of the effect of elections on democratic transitions represents the cutting edge of comparative democratization studies. Contributors: Jason Brownlee, Valerie J. Bunce, Larry Diamond , Axel Hadenius, Jonathan Hartlyn, Marc M. Howard, Staffan I. Lindberg, Jennifer L. McCoy, Bryon Moraski, Pippa Norris, Ellen Lust-Okar, Lise Rakner, Philip G. Roessler, Andreas Schedler, Jan Teorell, Nicolas van de Walle, Sharon L. Wolchik

Book Participatory Democracy

Download or read book Participatory Democracy written by Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A way of looking at politics from which a stronger democratic practice might emerge.

Book The Democratization of American Christianity

Download or read book The Democratization of American Christianity written by Nathan O. Hatch and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1991-01-23 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the early days of the American republic "The so-called Second Great Awakening was the shaping epoch of American Protestantism, and this book is the most important study of it ever published."—James Turner, Journal of Interdisciplinary History Winner of the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic book prize, and the Albert C. Outler Prize In this provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the early days of the American republic, Nathan O. Hatch argues that during this period American Christianity was democratized and common people became powerful actors on the religious scene. Hatch examines five distinct traditions or mass movements that emerged early in the nineteenth century—the Christian movement, Methodism, the Baptist movement, the black churches, and the Mormons—showing how all offered compelling visions of individual potential and collective aspiration to the unschooled and unsophisticated.

Book Democratizing Taiwan

Download or read book Democratizing Taiwan written by J. Bruce Jacobs and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-01-20 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taiwan is only one of four consolidated Asian democracies. Democratizing Taiwan provides the most comprehensive analysis of Taiwan's peaceful democratization including the past authoritarian experience, leadership both within and outside government, popular protest and elections, and constitutional interpretation and amendments.

Book Debates on Democratization

Download or read book Debates on Democratization written by Larry Diamond and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2010-09-15 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If democracy means anything, it means robust debates. Over the years, the pages of the Journal have certainly seen their share of lively and illuminating scholarly disagreements. As a service to students and teachers who wish to deepen their understanding of the questions and controversies that surround contemporary democratization, the Journal has now brought together a series of exchanges on the topic. --

Book Democratic Responsibility

Download or read book Democratic Responsibility written by Nora Hanagan and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2019-08-31 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American society is often described as one that celebrates self-reliance and personal responsibility. However, abolitionists, progressive reformers, civil rights activists, and numerous others often held their fellow citizens responsible for shared problems such as economic exploitation and white supremacy. Moreover, they viewed recognizing and responding to shared problems as essential to achieving democratic ideals. In Democratic Responsibility, Nora Hanagan examines American thinkers and activists who offered an alternative to individualistic conceptions of responsibility and puts them in dialogue with contemporary philosophers who write about shared responsibility. Drawing on the political theory and practice of Henry David Thoreau, Jane Addams, Martin Luther King Jr., and Audre Lorde, Hanagan develops a distinctly democratic approach to shared responsibility. Cooperative democracy is especially relevant in an age of globalization and hyperconnectivity, where societies are continually threatened with harms—such as climate change, global sweatshop labor, and structural racism—that result from the combined interactions of multiple individuals and institutions, and which therefore cannot be resolved without collective action. Democratic Responsibility offers insight into how political actors might confront seemingly intractable problems, and challenges conventional understandings of what commitment to democratic ideals entails. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, especially those who look to the history of political thought for resources that might promote social justice in the present.

Book Democratic Transition in the Muslim World

Download or read book Democratic Transition in the Muslim World written by Alfred Stepan and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early 2011, widespread protests ousted dictatorial regimes in both Tunisia and Egypt. Within a few years, Tunisia successfully held parliamentary and presidential elections and witnessed a peaceful transition of power, while the Egyptian military went on to seize power and institute authoritarian control. What explains the success and failure of transitions to democracy in these two countries, and how might they speak to democratic transition attempts in other Muslim-majority countries? Democratic Transition in the Muslim World convenes leading scholars to consider the implications of democratic success in Tunisia and failure in Egypt in comparative perspective. Alongside case studies of Indonesia, Senegal, and India, contributors analyze similarities and differences among democratizing countries with large Muslim populations, considering universal challenges as well as each nation’s particular obstacles. A central theme is the need to understand the conditions under which it becomes possible to craft pro-democratic coalitions among secularists and Islamists. Essays discuss the dynamics of secularist fears of Islamist electoral success, the role of secular constituencies in authoritarian regimes’ resilience, and the prospects for moderation among both secularist and Islamist political actors. They delve into topics such as the role of the army and foreign military aid, Middle Eastern constitutions, and the role of the Muslim Brotherhood. The book also includes an essay by the founder and president of Tunisia’s Ennadha Party, Rachid Ghannouchi, who discusses the political strategies his party chose to pursue.

Book Democratizing Our Data

Download or read book Democratizing Our Data written by Julia Lane and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wake-up call for America to create a new framework for democratizing data. Public data are foundational to our democratic system. People need consistently high-quality information from trustworthy sources. In the new economy, wealth is generated by access to data; government's job is to democratize the data playing field. Yet data produced by the American government are getting worse and costing more. In Democratizing Our Data, Julia Lane argues that good data are essential for democracy. Her book is a wake-up call to America to fix its broken public data system.

Book Digital Technology and Democratic Theory

Download or read book Digital Technology and Democratic Theory written by Lucy Bernholz and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-02-17 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most far-reaching transformations in our era is the wave of digital technologies rolling over—and upending—nearly every aspect of life. Work and leisure, family and friendship, community and citizenship have all been modified by now-ubiquitous digital tools and platforms. Digital Technology and Democratic Theory looks closely at one significant facet of our rapidly evolving digital lives: how technology is radically changing our lives as citizens and participants in democratic governments. To understand these transformations, this book brings together contributions by scholars from multiple disciplines to wrestle with the question of how digital technologies shape, reshape, and affect fundamental questions about democracy and democratic theory. As expectations have whiplashed—from Twitter optimism in the wake of the Arab Spring to Facebook pessimism in the wake of the 2016 US election—the time is ripe for a more sober and long-term assessment. How should we take stock of digital technologies and their promise and peril for reshaping democratic societies and institutions? To answer, this volume broaches the most pressing technological changes and issues facing democracy as a philosophy and an institution.

Book Democratizing Global Politics

Download or read book Democratizing Global Politics written by Rodger A. Payne and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2004-03-11 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that international institutions are becoming increasingly democratized.

Book Democratizing Leadership

Download or read book Democratizing Leadership written by Mike Klein and published by IAP. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratizing Leadership: Counter?hegemonic Democracy in Organizations, Institutions, and Communities promotes leadership in the democratization of culture to counter the current hegemony of domination and cultivate an alternative hegemony of collaboration. It is premised on a leadership framework for decision?making rooted in democratic voice and leading to collective action. This broad peacebuilding prescription for individual and collective agency accounts for the constructive role of conflict in democratic pluralism, and the need to develop practices and structures that prevent violent conflict in order to advance positive peace. This theory addresses the contexts of deliberative, agonistic, and revolutionary democratic frameworks. Democratizing Leadership is informed by three qualitative case studies described in rich detail. First Bank System Visual Art Program, In the Heart of the Beast Theater's May Day Ritual, and The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers exemplify the practice of democratizing leadership. These diverse settings include corporate banking during 1980's deregulation, an annual community May Day parade, and an informal alliance of peacemaking organizations. Leadership in each case promotes authentic voice, encourages decision?making with integrity, and advocates for responsible collective action.