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 The First Democracies written by Eric W. Robinson and published by Franz Steiner Verlag. This book was released on 1997 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Athens is often considered to have been the birth place of democracy but there were many democracies in Greece during the Archaic and Classical periods and this is a study of the other democratic states. Robinson begins by discussing ancient and modern definitions of democracy, he then examines Greek terminology, investigates the evidence for other early democratic states and draws conclusions about its emergence.
Download or read book Democracy Beyond Athens written by Eric W. Robinson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-22 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First full study of ancient Greek democracy in the Classical period outside Athens, which has three main goals: to identify where and when democratic governments established themselves; to explain why democracy spread to many parts of Greece; and to further our understanding of the nature of ancient democracy.
Download or read book Public Opinion and Popular Government written by Abbott Lawrence Lowell and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The New State written by Mary Parker Follett and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having organized neighborhood discussion groups before World War I, Follett traces the dynamics she noticed in these forums and develops some core concepts useful for those working on questions of public deliberation today. She also shows how deliberation informs debates that raged in political theory during her own era. She discusses the works of pluralists (Harold Laski), idealists (T. H. Green and Bernard Bosanquet), and pragmatists (William James) and makes important arguments about the relationship between socialism and democracy. Her work is marked by rigorous thinking about the implications of democratic principles as they relate to political and socioeconomic organization. This book articulates the formation of a so-called new state, growing out of the local activities of citizens and renews the American idea of federalism in order to balance local activities and national purposes.
Download or read book Popular Government written by Henry Sumner Maine and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Popular Government in the United States written by Charles Hyneman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political theory consists in clarification of language and concepts, in description and analysis of institutions and behavior, and in appraisal and evaluation of political events. Hyneman's theory is not one of the behavioral or functional varieties that rely on special language and concepts drawn from other disciplines than political science. It emphasizes a central concern of both conventional and behavioral theory: the distribution of "power," or what proportion of people have influence over what aspects of government. He is also interested in how power is shared, divided, checked, and balanced.The main task of political theory, Hyneman thinks, is clarification of the values served by and sustaining American democracy. This task gives meaning and direction to analysis of the elements of democracy and to empirical research on the processes of democracy. In this sense political science is not "value-free"; it is most useful in pursuit of the implications of basic beliefs and ideals. These beliefs and ideals can be found in historical statements as well as inferred from institutions and behavior.Hyneman's emphasis on popular control, electoral politics, and equality of influence tends to challenge both of the "pluralist" and "ruling elite" schools-though it should be clear that he is not engaged in a scholastic debate. The freedom of his analysis, ranging from specific reference to the professional controversies of his day is one of its strengths and a probable source of originality. He connects it explicitly to the literature of political science at critical points, as it existed when originally published in 1968.
Download or read book Internal Improvement written by John Lauritz Larson and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2002-11-25 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the people of British North America threw off their colonial bonds, they sought more than freedom from bad government: most of the founding generation also desired the freedom to create and enjoy good, popular, responsive government. This book traces the central issue on which early Americans pinned their hopes for positive government action--internal improvement. The nation's early republican governments undertook a wide range of internal improvement projects meant to assure Americans' security, prosperity, and enlightenment--from the building of roads, canals, and bridges to the establishment of universities and libraries. But competitive struggles eventually undermined the interstate and interregional cooperation required, and the public soured on the internal improvement movement. Jacksonian politicians seized this opportunity to promote a more libertarian political philosophy in place of activist, positive republicanism. By the 1850s, the United States had turned toward a laissez-faire system of policy that, ironically, guaranteed more freedom for capitalists and entrepreneurs than ever envisioned in the founders' revolutionary republicanism.
Download or read book The Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2018-08-20 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.
Download or read book American Government and Popular Discontent written by Steven E. Schier and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular distrust and the entrenchment of government by professionals lie at the root of America’s most pressing political problems. How did U.S. politics get to this point? Contemporary American politics got much of its shape from the transformations brought about from the 1950s to the 1980s. Presidential and congressional behavior, voting behavior, public opinion, public policy and federalism were all reconfigured during that time and many of those changes persist to this day and structure the political environment in the early twenty-first century. Throughout American history, parties have been a reliable instrument for translating majority preferences into public policy. From the 1950s to the 1980s, a gradual antiparty realignment, alongside the growth of professional government, produced a new American political system of remarkable durability – and remarkable dysfunction. It is a system that is paradoxically stable despite witnessing frequent shifts in party control of the institutions of government at the state and national level. Schier and Eberly's system-level view of American politics demonstrates the disconnect between an increasingly polarized and partisan elite and an increasingly disaffected mass public.
Download or read book Popular Government written by Henry Sumner Maine and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Congressional Record written by United States. Congress and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 1324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Audacity of Hope written by Barack Obama and published by Crown. This book was released on 2006-10-17 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Barack Obama’s lucid vision of America’s place in the world and call for a new kind of politics that builds upon our shared understandings as Americans, based on his years in the Senate “In our lowdown, dispiriting era, Obama’s talent for proposing humane, sensible solutions with uplifting, elegant prose does fill one with hope.”—Michael Kazin, The Washington Post In July 2004, four years before his presidency, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. One phrase in particular anchored itself in listeners’ minds, a reminder that for all the discord and struggle to be found in our history as a nation, we have always been guided by a dogged optimism in the future, or what Obama called “the audacity of hope.” The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama’s call for a different brand of politics—a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the “endless clash of armies” we see in congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of “our improbable experiment in democracy.” He explores those forces—from the fear of losing to the perpetual need to raise money to the power of the media—that can stifle even the best-intentioned politician. He also writes, with surprising intimacy and self-deprecating humor, about settling in as a senator, seeking to balance the demands of public service and family life, and his own deepening religious commitment. At the heart of this book is Barack Obama’s vision of how we can move beyond our divisions to tackle concrete problems. He examines the growing economic insecurity of American families, the racial and religious tensions within the body politic, and the transnational threats—from terrorism to pandemic—that gather beyond our shores. And he grapples with the role that faith plays in a democracy—where it is vital and where it must never intrude. Underlying his stories is a vigorous search for connection: the foundation for a radically hopeful political consensus. Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to our Constitution, Obama says, can Americans repair a political process that is broken, and restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of touch with millions of ordinary Americans. Those Americans are out there, he writes—“waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”
Download or read book The Pig Book written by Citizens Against Government Waste and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2005-04-06 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compendium of the most ridiculous examples of Congress's pork-barrel spending.
Download or read book Popular Government written by William Howard Taft and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern presidency is increasingly seen as in trouble by all sides of the political spectrum and by people of the most diverse political views. Understanding why this is the case requires examining the basic principles of the presidency itself, and there is no better place to start than William Howard Taft's Popular Government. His views on executive power and constitutional interpretation of this power are not rooted in nostalgia. Instead, Taft describes how and why the Progressive Movement marked one of the major turning points in American political thought. Taft wrote out of concern over the nature of the American system itself. He sought to describe the founding principles of the country, arguing that grasping these is essential for Americans' understanding of themselves as a people and for their daily exercise of citizenship. The concerns he addressed remain central today. Th at is because Taft's quarrels with the liberal-progressive tradition in politics have not yet completely played themselves out, either in academic life, or in the political arena. In a brilliant new introduction, Sidney Pearson argues that neither Roosevelt nor Wilson should be viewed as enemies of free government by any serious student of American political thought, nor should Taft be so regarded either. The concerns Taft engages remain important for any understanding of the problems that confront the American experiment in popular government. Popular Government is a basic introduction to debate about the nature of the presidency and the larger constitutional context in which such arguments take place. Th ere is no better way to gain perspective on the debate than reading this volume.
Download or read book Politics and Administration written by Frank J. Goodnow and published by . This book was released on 1900 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Prerogative of Popular Government written by James Harrington and published by . This book was released on 1658 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
