Download or read book Four Threats written by Suzanne Mettler and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An urgent, historically-grounded take on the four major factors that undermine American democracy, and what we can do to address them. While many Americans despair of the current state of U.S. politics, most assume that our system of government and democracy itself are invulnerable to decay. Yet when we examine the past, we find that to the contrary, the United States has undergone repeated crises of democracy, from the earliest days of the republic to the present. In The Four Threats, Robert C. Lieberman and Suzanne Mettler explore five historical episodes when democracy in the United States was under siege: the 1790s, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Depression, and Watergate. These episodes risked profound, even fatal, damage to the American democratic experiment, and on occasion antidemocratic forces have prevailed. From this history, four distinct characteristics of democratic disruption emerge. Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power – alone or in combination – have threatened the survival of the republic, but it has survived, so far. What is unique, and alarming, about the present moment is that all four conditions are present in American politics today. This formidable convergence marks the contemporary era as an especially grave moment for democracy in the United States. But history provides a valuable repository from which contemporary Americans can draw lessons about how democracy was eventually strengthened — or in some cases weakened — in the past. By revisiting how earlier generations of Americans faced threats to the principles enshrined in the Constitution, we can see the promise and the peril that have led us to the present and chart a path toward repairing our civic fabric and renewing democracy.

Download or read book Facing the Challenge of Democracy written by Paul M. Sniderman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-30 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Citizens are political simpletons--that is only a modest exaggeration of a common characterization of voters. Certainly, there is no shortage of evidence of citizens' limited political knowledge, even about matters of the highest importance, along with inconsistencies in their thinking, some glaring by any standard. But this picture of citizens all too often approaches caricature. Paul Sniderman and Benjamin Highton bring together leading political scientists who offer new insights into the political thinking of the public, the causes of party polarization, the motivations for political participation, and the paradoxical relationship between turnout and democratic representation. These studies propel a foundational argument about democracy. Voters can only do as well as the alternatives on offer. These alternatives are constrained by third players, in particular activists, interest groups, and financial contributors. The result: voters often appear to be shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent because the alternatives they must choose between are shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent. Facing the Challenge of Democracy features contributions by John Aldrich, Stephen Ansolabehere, Edward Carmines, Jack Citrin, Susanna Dilliplane, Christopher Ellis, Michael Ensley, Melanie Freeze, Donald Green, Eitan Hersh, Simon Jackman, Gary Jacobson, Matthew Knee, Jonathan Krasno, Arthur Lupia, David Magleby, Eric McGhee, Diana Mutz, Candice Nelson, Benjamin Page, Kathryn Pearson, Eric Schickler, John Sides, James Stimson, Lynn Vavreck, Michael Wagner, Mark Westlye, and Tao Xie.

Download or read book The Character of American Democracy written by Jill Long Thompson and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illuminating examination of democratic ethics is “a resource for Americans who are seeking ways to secure our democracy and our future as a nation” (Congressman John Lewis). Ethical leadership, steeped in integrity and fairness, matters. The future of our nation and our world depends upon the quality of America’s character. In this absorbing look at our contemporary society and government, former Indiana congresswoman Jill Long Thompson persuasively argues that we all have a meaningful role to play in shaping America’s character and future. The citizenry, as well as their elected officials, are responsible for protecting fairness of participation and integrity in elections, as well as in the adoption and execution of laws. In this troubling time when the public is losing trust and confidence in our government, Jill Long Thompson shows us a bipartisan way forward.

Download or read book Democracies Divided written by Thomas Carothers and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A must-read for anyone concerned about the fate of contemporary democracies.”—Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Why divisions have deepened and what can be done to heal them As one part of the global democratic recession, severe political polarization is increasingly afflicting old and new democracies alike, producing the erosion of democratic norms and rising societal anger. This volume is the first book-length comparative analysis of this troubling global phenomenon, offering in-depth case studies of countries as wide-ranging and important as Brazil, India, Kenya, Poland, Turkey, and the United States. The case study authors are a diverse group of country and regional experts, each with deep local knowledge and experience. Democracies Divided identifies and examines the fissures that are dividing societies and the factors bringing polarization to a boil. In nearly every case under study, political entrepreneurs have exploited and exacerbated long-simmering divisions for their own purposes—in the process undermining the prospects for democratic consensus and productive governance. But this book is not simply a diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Each case study discusses actions that concerned citizens and organizations are taking to counter polarizing forces, whether through reforms to political parties, institutions, or the media. The book’s editors distill from the case studies a range of possible ways for restoring consensus and defeating polarization in the world’s democracies. Timely, rigorous, and accessible, this book is of compelling interest to civic activists, political actors, scholars, and ordinary citizens in societies beset by increasingly rancorous partisanship.

Download or read book Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy written by Jay P. Corrin and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2010-12-20 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the development of progressive Catholic approaches to political and economic modernization, Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy disputes standard interpretations of the Catholic response to democracy and modernity in the English-speaking world—particularly the conventional view that the Church was the servant of right-wing reactionaries and authoritarian, patriarchal structures. Starting with the writings of Bishop Wilhelm von Ketteler of Germany, the Frenchman Frédérick Ozanam, and England’s Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, whose pioneering work laid the foundation of the Catholic "third way," Corrin reveals a long tradition within Roman Catholicism that championed social activism. These visionary writers were the forerunners of Pope John XXIII’s aggiornamento, a call for Catholics to broaden their historical perspectives and move beyond a static theology fixed to the past. By examining this often overlooked tradition, Corrin attempts to confront the perception that Catholicism in the modern age has invariably been an institution of reaction that is highly suspicious of liberalism and progressive social reform. Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy charts the efforts of key Catholic intellectuals, primarily in Britain and the United States, who embraced the modern world and endeavored to use the legacies of their faith to form an alternative, pluralistic path that avoided both socialist collectivism and capitalism. In this sweeping volume, Corrin discusses the influences of Cecil and G. K. Chesterton, H. A. Reinhold, Hilaire Belloc, and many others on the development of Catholic social, economic, and political thought, with a special focus on Belloc and Reinhold as representatives of reactionary and progressive positions, respectively. He also provides an in-depth analysis of Catholic Distributists’ responses to the labor unrest in Britain prior to World War I and later, in the 1930s, to the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War and the forces of fascism and communism.

Download or read book Contested Democracy written by Manisha Sinha and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With essays on U.S. history ranging from the American Revolution to the dawn of the twenty-first century, Contested Democracy illuminates struggles waged over freedom and citizenship throughout the American past. Guided by a commitment to democratic citizenship and responsible scholarship, the contributors to this volume insist that rigorous engagement with history is essential to a vital democracy, particularly amid the current erosion of human rights and civil liberties within the United States and abroad. Emphasizing the contradictory ways in which freedom has developed within the United States and in the exercise of American power abroad, these essays probe challenges to American democracy through conflicts shaped by race, slavery, gender, citizenship, political economy, immigration, law, empire, and the idea of the nation state. In this volume, writers demonstrate how opposition to the expansion of democracy has shaped the American tradition as much as movements for social and political change. By foregrounding those who have been marginalized in U.S society as well as the powerful, these historians and scholars argue for an alternative vision of American freedom that confronts the limitations, failings, and contradictions of U.S. power. Their work provides crucial insight into the role of the United States in this latest age of American empire and the importance of different and oppositional visions of American democracy and freedom. At a time of intense disillusionment with U.S. politics and of increasing awareness of the costs of empire, these contributors argue that responsible historical scholarship can challenge the blatant manipulation of discourses on freedom. They call for careful and conscientious scholarship not only to illuminate contemporary problems but also to act as a bulwark against mythmaking in the service of cynical political ends.

Download or read book The Bitter End written by John Sides and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-19 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What an intensely divisive election portends for American politics The year 2020 was a tumultuous time in American politics. It brought a global pandemic, protests for racial justice, and a razor-thin presidential election outcome. It culminated in an attack on the U.S. Capitol that attempted to deny Joe Biden’s victory. The Bitter End explores the long-term trends and short-term shocks that shaped this dramatic year and what these changes could mean for the future. John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck demonstrate that Trump’s presidency intensified the partisan politics of the previous decades and the identity politics of the 2016 election. Presidential elections have become calcified, with less chance of big swings in either party’s favor. Republicans remained loyal to Trump and kept the election close, despite Trump’s many scandals, a recession, and the pandemic. But in a narrowly divided electorate even small changes can have big consequences. The pandemic was a case in point: when Trump pushed to reopen the country even as infections mounted, support for Biden increased. The authors explain that, paradoxically, even as Biden’s win came at a time of heightened party loyalty, there remained room for shifts that shaped the election’s outcome. Ultimately, the events of 2020 showed that instead of the country coming together to face national challenges—the pandemic, George Floyd’s murder, and the Capitol riot—these challenges only reinforced divisions. Expertly chronicling the tensions of an election that came to an explosive finish, The Bitter End presents a detailed account of a year of crises and the dangerous direction in which the country is headed.

Download or read book Approaching Democracy written by Larry Berman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 976 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From unsubstantiated 2020 election fraud claims and the storming of the US Capitol to the rampage of COVID-19 and racial injustice, this book covers the foundations, institutions, and processes of "the great American experiment" with a clear and resonant theme: Democracy cannot be taken for granted, whether at home or internationally, and eternal vigilance (along with civic intelligence) is required to protect it. Approaching Democracy provides students with a framework to analyze the structure, process, and action of US government, institutions, and social movements. It also invites comparison with other countries. This globalizing perspective gives students an understanding of issues of governance and challenges to democracy here and elsewhere. At a moment of growing domestic terrorism, political hyper-partisanship, populism, identity politics, and governmental dysfunction, there is no better time to bring Approaching Democracy--a textbook based on Vaclav Havel’s powerful metaphor of democracy as an ideal and the American experiment as the closest approach to it--to a new generation of political science undergraduate students. NEW TO THE NINTH EDITION Two new authors, Nadia E. Brown and Sarah Allen Gershon, who bring refreshing intellectual and diverse perspectives to the text. Includes the tumultuous political context surrounding the Trump presidency, the 2020 elections, the 116th Congress, the Supreme Court, the COVID-19 crisis, and the fight for social and racial justice. Figures and tables reflect the latest available data and surveys. Two new features--Diversity and Democracy, highlighting the experiences of America’s diverse social groups and the role of identity politics—and Discussion Questions at the end of each chapter, assessing critical thinking skills. Critical contemporary events are explored throughout the book, including the attempted coup following the 2020 elections, the Trump administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter, protests in American cities that come to the epicenter of America’s approach to democracy, the changes in the Supreme Court and the federal court system, the growth of LGBTQ+ legal rights, and the alteration in American Federalism. New and updated data on public attitudes toward police brutality, DACA, voter suppression, healthcare, and the global climate movement are also covered.

Download or read book The Technocratic Challenge to Democracy written by Eri Bertsou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-09 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents the first comprehensive study of how technocracy currently challenges representative democracy and asks how technocratic politics undermines democratic legitimacy. How strong is its challenge to democratic institutions? The book offers a solid theory and conceptualization of technocratic politics and the technocratic challenge is analyzed empirically at all levels of the national and supra-national institutions and actors, such as cabinets, parties, the EU, independent bodies, central banks and direct democratic campaigns in a comparative and policy perspective. It takes an in-depth analysis addressing elitism, meritocracy, de-politicization, efficiency, neutrality, reliance on science and distrust toward party politics and ideologies, and their impact when pitched against democratic responsiveness, accountability, citizens' input and pluralist competition. In the current crisis of democracy, this book assesses the effects of the technocratic critique against representative institutions, which are perceived to be unable to deal with complex and global problems. It analyzes demands for competent and responsible policy making in combination with the simultaneous populist resistance to experts. The book will be of key interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, political theory, policy analysis, multi-level governance as well as practitioners working in bureaucracies, media, think-tanks and policy making.

Download or read book Civility and Democracy in America written by Cornell W. Clayton and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although many Americans prefer intelligent debate and reasoned arguments, today's political arena is rife with negative personal attacks, outrageous character assassinations, and even violence. Yet incivility has existed in various forms throughout history, often preceding positive change. In March 2011, Washington State University hosted one of four national conferences on the role of civility in American democracy. Leading scholars from a variety of disciplines focused on five distinct perspectives: history, religion, philosophy, art and architecture, and media. Comprised of more than twenty papers presented at that meeting, Civility and Democracy in America examines the meaning of civility and disseminates the insight of these seasoned experts.

Download or read book Presidents Populism and the Crisis of Democracy written by William G. Howell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To counter the threat America faces, two political scientists offer “clear constitutional solutions that break sharply with the conventional wisdom” (Steven Levitsky, New York Times–bestselling coauthor of How Democracies Die). Has American democracy’s long, ambitious run come to an end? Possibly yes. As William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe argue in this trenchant new analysis of modern politics, the United States faces a historic crisis that threatens our system of self-government—and if democracy is to be saved, the causes of the crisis must be understood and defused. The most visible cause is Donald Trump, who has used his presidency to attack the nation’s institutions and violate its democratic norms. Yet Trump is but a symptom of causes that run much deeper: social forces like globalization, automation, and immigration that for decades have generated economic harms and cultural anxieties that our government has been wholly ineffective at addressing. Millions of Americans have grown angry and disaffected, and populist appeals have found a receptive audience. These were the drivers of Trump’s dangerous presidency, and they’re still there for other populists to weaponize. What can be done? The disruptive forces of modernity cannot be stopped. The solution lies, instead, in having a government that can deal with them—which calls for aggressive new policies, but also for institutional reforms that enhance its capacity for effective action. The path to progress is filled with political obstacles, including an increasingly populist, anti-government Republican Party. It is hard to be optimistic. But if the challenge is to be met, we need reforms of the presidency itself—reforms that harness the promise of presidential power for effective government, but firmly protect against that power being put to anti-democratic ends.

Download or read book The Challenge to Democracy in Nepal written by T. Louise Brown and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of Nepal from the Medieval/Early Modern period through to the present day with particular attention to contemporary Nepal, and the prospects for democracy.

Download or read book The End of Democracy written by Douglas E. Schoen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WARNING: IMMEDIATE GLOBAL THREAT TO ALL DEMOCRATIC NATIONS BY THE CHINA-RUSSIA AXIS America’s future has never seemed more uncertain. Our politics are dysfunctional; our cultural cohesion is a thing of the past; our institutions have lost legitimacy; and our identity as Americans seems increasingly subordinate to tribal or ideological identities. Overhanging all these issues is a loss of confidence in democracy itself, both in America and around the world, and the concomitant rise of authoritarianism as a viable model of governance in the eyes of millions. At the center of this story are two nations—Russia and China—that together stand as a profound challenge to the American and Western future, and to the future of democracy and human rights around the globe. As America unravels, China and Russia have taken every opportunity to expand their opportunities and consolidate their gains. If the United States is to prevail in this struggle, our efforts must begin with a better understanding of our determined adversaries in Beijing and Moscow—and of how their successes have emboldened the cause of authoritarianism around the world, to the detriment of free societies and free people.

Download or read book Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy written by Melody C. Barnes and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we create and sustain an America that never was, but should be? How can we build a robust multiracial democracy in which everyone is valued and everyone possesses political, economic and social capital? How can democracy become a meaningful way of life, for all citizens? By critically probing these questions, the editors of Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy seize the opportunity to bridge the gap between our democratic aspirations and our current reality.

Download or read book Democratic Resilience written by Robert C. Lieberman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized in recent decades. Both political elites and everyday citizens are divided into rival and mutually antagonistic partisan camps, with each camp questioning the political legitimacy and democratic commitments of the other side. Does this polarization pose threats to democracy itself? What can make some democratic institutions resilient in the face of such challenges? Democratic Resilience brings together a distinguished group of specialists to examine how polarization affects the performance of institutional checks and balances as well as the political behavior of voters, civil society actors, and political elites. The volume bridges the conventional divide between institutional and behavioral approaches to the study of American politics and incorporates historical and comparative insights to explain the nature of contemporary challenges to democracy. It also breaks new ground to identify the institutional and societal sources of democratic resilience.

Download or read book Organised Crime and the Challenge to Democracy written by Felia Allum and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-06 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative book investigates the paradoxical situation whereby organized crime groups, authoritarian in nature and anti-democratic in practice, perform at their best in democratic countries. It uses examples from the United States, Japan, Russia, South America, France, Italy and the European Union.

Download or read book Challenges of Democracy in the 21st Century written by Luca Tomini and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The effectiveness and capacity of survival of democratic regimes has been recently and widely questioned in the public and political debate. Both democratic institutions and political actors are increasingly confronted with rapid economic and societal transformations that, at least according to some observers and commentators, they not seem to be ready or equipped to manage effectively. This book evaluates and challenges recent scholarly literature on the quality of democracy. It provides a critical assessment of the current state of the studies on the subject, identifying the key questions and discussing open issues, alternative approaches, problems and future developments. Bringing together some of the most prominent and distinguished scholars who have developed and discussed the topic of the quality of democracy during the last decade, it deals with a highly relevant topic in political science and extremely sensitive subject for our democratic societies. This text will be of key interest to scholars of democracy and democratization and more broadly to comparative politics, electoral studies, political theory, power and comparative political institutions.