Download or read book DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC PLANNING written by DEVINE and published by . This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Pierre Bourdieu and Democratic Politics written by Loïc Wacquant and published by Polity. This book was released on 2005-06-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pierre Bourdieu was a brilliant sociologist and social thinker; he was also an intensely political man whose work is of profound significance for rethinking democracy. This original volume presents and develops Bourdieu's distinctive contribution to the theory and practice of democratic politics. It explicates and illustrates his core concepts of political field and field of power, his historical model of the bureaucratic state, and his influential analyses of the practices and institutions involved in the paradoxical phenomenon of political representation - starting with the enigma of delegation, or what he called the "mystery of ministry." The fruitfulness of Bourdieu's approach is demonstrated in a series of integrated studies of voting, public opinion polls, party dynamics, class rule, and state-building, as well as by careful analyses of Bourdieu's own civic engagements and his theoretical treatment of the politics of reason and recognition in contemporary society. Charting the connections between Bourdieu's political views, the main nodes of his sociology of democratic representation, and the implications of this sociology for progressive civic thought and action, this book will be of interest to students and scholars across the gamut of disciplines as well as to citizens concerned with renewing struggles for social justice.

Download or read book Cognitive Capitalism written by Yann Moulier-Boutang and published by Polity. This book was released on 2011 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that we are undergoing a transition from industrial capitalism to a new form of capitalism - what the author calls & lsquo; cognitive capitalism & rsquo;

Download or read book Information Power and Democracy written by Nico Stehr and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-12 with total page 661 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The link between liberty and knowledge is neither static nor simple. Until recently the mutual support between knowledge, science, democracy and emancipation was presupposed. Recently, however, the close relationship between democracy and knowledge has been viewed with skepticism. The growing societal reliance on specialized knowledge often appears to actually undermine democracy. Is it that we do not know enough, but that we know too much? What are the implications for the freedom of societies and their citizens? Does knowledge help or heed them in unraveling the complexity of new challenges? This book systematically explores the shifting dynamics of knowledge production and the implications for the conditions and practices of freedom. It considers the growth of knowledge about knowledge and the impact of an evolving media. It argues for a revised understanding of the societal role of knowledge and presents the concept of 'knowledge societies' as a major resource for liberty.

Download or read book A Normal Country written by Andrei Shleifer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a firsthand glimpse into the intellectual challenges that Russia's turbulent transition generated. It deals with many of the most important reforms, from Gorbachev's half-hearted "perestroika," to the mass privatization program, to the efforts to build legal and regulatory institutions of a market economy.

Download or read book Karl Polanyi written by Gareth Dale and published by Polity. This book was released on 2010-06-21 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation is generally acclaimed as being among the most influential works of economic history in the twentieth century, and remains as vital in the current historical conjuncture as it was in his own. In its critique of nineteenth-century ‘market fundamentalism’ it reads as a warning to our own neoliberal age, and is widely touted as a prophetic guidebook for those who aspire to understand the causes and dynamics of global economic turbulence at the end of the 2000s. Karl Polanyi: The Limits of the Market is the first comprehensive introduction to Polanyi’s ideas and legacy. It assesses not only the texts for which he is famous – prepared during his spells in American academia – but also his journalistic articles written in his first exile in Vienna, and lectures and pamphlets from his second exile, in Britain. It provides a detailed critical analysis of The Great Transformation, but also surveys Polanyi’s seminal writings in economic anthropology, the economic history of ancient and archaic societies, and political and economic theory. Its primary source base includes interviews with Polanyi’s daughter, Kari Polanyi-Levitt, as well as the entire compass of his own published and unpublished writings in English and German. This engaging and accessible introduction to Polanyi’s thinking will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences, providing a refreshing perspective on the roots of our current economic crisis.

Download or read book Marx written by Terrell Carver and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-12-08 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karl Marx was the first theorist of global capitalism and remains perhaps its most trenchant critic. This clear and innovative book, from one of the leading contemporary experts on Marx's thought, gives us a fresh overview of his ideas by framing them within concepts that remain topical and alive today, from class struggle and progress to democracy and exploitation. Taking Marx's work in his pamphleteering, journalism, speeches, correspondence and published books as central to a renewed understanding of the man and his politics, this book brings both his life experience and our contemporary political engagements vividly to life. It shows us the many ways that a nineteenth-century thinker has been made into the 'Marx' we know today, beginning with his own self-presentations before moving on to the successive different "Marxes" that were later constructed: an icon of communist revolution, a demonic figure in the Cold War, a 'humanist' philosopher, and a spectre haunting Occupy Wall Street. Carver's accessible and lively book unpacks the historical, intellectual and political difficulties that make Marx sometimes difficult to read and understand, while also highlighting the distinct areas where his challenging writings speak directly to the twenty-first-century world. It will be essential reading for students and scholars throughout the social sciences and anyone interested in the contemporary legacy of his revolutionary ideas.

Download or read book Democracy Incorporated written by Sheldon S. Wolin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. Now with a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges, Democracy Incorporated remains an essential work for understanding the state of democracy in America.

Download or read book Affluence and Freedom written by Pierre Charbonnier and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.

Download or read book Liberty and Security written by Conor Gearty and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-03 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All aspire to liberty and security in their lives but few people truly enjoy them. This book explains why this is so. In what Conor Gearty calls our 'neo-democratic' world, the proclamation of universal liberty and security is mocked by facts on the ground: the vast inequalities in supposedly free societies, the authoritarian regimes with regular elections, and the terrible socio-economic deprivation camouflaged by cynically proclaimed commitments to human rights. Gearty's book offers an explanation of how this has come about, providing also a criticism of the present age which tolerates it. He then goes on to set out a manifesto for a better future, a place where liberty and security can be rich platforms for everyone's life. The book identifies neo-democracies as those places which play at democracy so as to disguise the injustice at their core. But it is not just the new 'democracies' that have turned 'neo', the so-called established democracies are also hurtling in the same direction, as is the United Nations. A new vision of universal freedom is urgently required. Drawing on scholarship in law, human rights and political science this book argues for just such a vision, one in which the great achievements of our democratic past are not jettisoned as easily as were the socialist ideals of the original democracy-makers.

Download or read book Digital Political Radical written by Natalie Fenton and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Digital, Political, Radical is a siren call to the field of media and communications and the study of social and political movements. We must put the politics of transformation at the very heart of our analyses to meet the global challenges of gross inequality and ever-more impoverished democracies. Fenton makes an impassioned plea for re-invigorating critical research on digital media such that it can be explanatory, practical and normative. She dares us to be politically emboldened. She urges us to seek out an emancipatory politics that aims to deepen our democratic horizons. To ask: how can we do democracy better? What are the conditions required to live together well? Then, what is the role of the media and how can we reclaim media, power and politics for progressive ends? Journeying through a range of protest and political movements, Fenton debunks myths of digital media along the way and points us in the direction of newly emergent politics of the Left. Digital, Political, Radical contributes to political debate on contemporary (re)configurations of radical progressive politics through a consideration of how we experience (counter) politics in the digital age and how this may influence our being political.

Download or read book For a New West written by Karl Polanyi and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a recent meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, it was reported that a ghost was haunting the deliberations of the assembled global elite - that of the renowned social scientist and economic historian, Karl Polanyi. In his classic work, The Great Transformation, Polanyi documented the impact of the rise of market society on western civilization and captured better than anyone else the destructive effects of the economic, political and social crisis of the 1930s. Today, in the throes of another Great Recession, Polanyi’s work has gained a new significance. To understand the profound challenges faced by our democracies today, we need to revisit history and revisit his work. In this new collection of unpublished texts - lectures, draft essays and reports written between 1919 and 1958 - Polanyi examines the collapse of the liberal economic order and the demise of democracies in the inter-war years. He takes up again the fundamental question that preoccupied him throughout his work - the place of the economy in society - and aims to show how we might return to an economy anchored in society and its cultural, religious and political institutions. For anyone concerned about the danger to democracy and social life posed by the unleashing of capital from regulatory control and the dominance of the neoliberal ideologies of market fundamentalism, this important new volume by one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century is a must-read.

Download or read book Social Movements in Times of Austerity Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis written by Donatella della Porta and published by Polity. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent years have seen an enormous increase in protests across the world in which citizens have challenged what they see as a deterioration of democratic institutions and the very civil, political and social rights that form the basis of democratic life. Beginning with Iceland in 2008, and then forcefully in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece and Portugal, or more recently in Peru, Brazil, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine, people have taken to the streets against what they perceive as a rampant and dangerous corruption of democracy, with a distinct focus on inequality and suffering. This timely new book addresses the anti-austerity social movements of which these protests form part, mobilizing in the context of a crisis of neoliberalism. Donatella della Porta shows that, in order to understand their main facets in terms of social basis, strategy, and identity and organizational structures, we should look at the specific characteristics of the socioeconomic, cultural and political context in which they developed. The result is an important and insightful contribution to understanding a key issue of our times, which will be of interest to students and scholars of political and economic sociology, political science and social movement studies, as well as political activists.

Download or read book Can Governments Earn Our Trust written by Donald F. Kettl and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-08-07 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some analysts have called distrust the biggest governmental crisis of our time. It is unquestionably a huge problem, undermining confidence in our elected institutions, shrinking social capital, slowing innovation, and raising existential questions for democratic government itself. What’s behind the rising distrust in democracies around the world and can we do anything about it? In this lively and thought-provoking essay, Donald F. Kettl, a leading scholar of public policy and management, investigates the deep historical roots of distrust in government, exploring its effects on the social contract between citizens and their elected representatives. Most importantly, the book examines the strategies that present-day governments can follow to earn back our trust, so that the officials we elect can govern more effectively on our behalf.

Download or read book Europe written by Jürgen Habermas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The future of Europe and the role it will play in the 21st century are among the most important political questions of our time. The optimism of a decade ago has now faded but the stakes are higher than ever. The way these questions are answered will have enormous implications not only for all Europeans but also for the citizens of Europe’s closest and oldest ally – the USA. In this new book, one of Europe's leading intellectuals examines the political alternatives facing Europe today and outlines a course of action for the future. Habermas advocates a policy of gradual integration of Europe in which key decisions about Europe's future are put in the hands of its peoples, and a 'bipolar commonality' of the West in which a more unified Europe is able to work closely with the United States to build a more stable and equitable international order. This book includes Habermas's portraits of three long-time philosophical companions, Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida and Ronald Dworkin. It also includes several important new texts by Habermas on the impact of the media on the public sphere, on the enduring importance religion in "post-secular" societies, and on the design of a democratic constitutional order for the emergent world society.

Download or read book The Third Way written by Anthony Giddens and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of finding a 'third way' in politics has been widely discussed over recent months - not only in the UK, but in the US, Continental Europe and Latin America. But what is the third way? Supporters of the notion haven't been able to agree, and critics deny the possibility altogether. Anthony Giddens shows that developing a third way is not only a possibility but a necessity in modern politics.

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.