Delusional Democracy

Delusional Democracy PDF Author: Joel S. Hirschhorn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
American democracy is crumbling, but if citizens take back their sovereign power it can be fixed.

Delusional Democracy

Delusional Democracy PDF Author: Joel S. Hirschhorn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
American democracy is crumbling, but if citizens take back their sovereign power it can be fixed.

Democratic Delusions

Democratic Delusions PDF Author: Richard J. Ellis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
It is becoming common in many states: the opportunity to reclaim government from politicians by simply signing a petition to put an initiative on the ballot and then voting for it. Isn't this what America ought to be about? Proposition 13 in California's 1978 election paved the way; the past decade saw more than 450 such actions; now in many states direct legislation dominates the political agenda and defines political—and public-opinion. While this may appear to be democracy in action, Richard Ellis warns us that the initiative process may be putting democracy at risk. In Democratic Delusions he offers a critical analysis of the statewide initiative process in the United States, challenging readers to look beyond populist rhetoric and face political reality. Through engaging prose and illuminating (and often amusing) anecdotes, Ellis shows readers the "dark side" of direct democracy—specifically the undemocratic consequences that result from relying too heavily on the initiative process. He provides historic context to the development of initiatives-from their Populist and Progress roots to their accelerated use in recent decades-and shows the differences between initiative processes in the states that use them. Most important, while acknowledging the positive contribution of initiatives, Ellis shows that there are reasons to use them carefully and sparingly: ill-considered initiatives can subvert normal legislative checks and balances, undermine the deliberative process, and even threaten the rights of minority groups through state-sanctioned measures. Today's initiative process, Ellis warns, is dominated not by ordinary citizens but by politicians, perennial activists, wealthy interests, and well-oiled machines. Deliberately misleading language on the ballot confuses voters and influences election results. And because many initiatives are challenged in the courts, these ostensibly democratic procedures have now put legislation in the hands of the judiciary. Throughout his book he cites examples drawn from states in which initiatives are used intensively—Oregon, California, Colorado, Washington, and Arizona-as well as others in which their use has increased in recent years. Undoing mistakes enacted by initiative can be more difficult than correcting errors of legislatures. As voters prepare to consider the host of initiatives that will be offered in the 2002 elections, this book can help put those efforts in a clearer light. Democratic Delusions urges moderation, attempting to teach citizens to be at least as skeptical of the initiative process as they are of the legislative process—and to appreciate the enduring value of the representative institutions they seek to circumvent.

Delusions of Democracy

Delusions of Democracy PDF Author: Moses Weldon Sowards
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Este libro ilustrado para niänos tiene solapas que los estudiantes pueden usar para esconder las palabras o los dibujos. Estâa organizado alrededor de 15 temas populares incluyendo granjas, escuelas, familia, colores y alimentos.

On Sovereignty and Other Political Delusions

On Sovereignty and Other Political Delusions PDF Author: Joan Cocks
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178093355X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Winner of the 2015 David Easton Prize, awarded by the American Political Science Association (APSA) Global forces are eroding the ability of states to exert sovereign control over their populations, territories, and borders. Yet when dominated subjects across the world dream of freedom, they continue to conceive of it in sovereign terms. Sovereign freedom haunts the imagination of oppressed ethnic minorities, popular masses ruled by foreign powers or homegrown tyrants, indigenous peoples, and individuals chafing under customary or governmental restrictions. On Sovereignty and Other Political Delusions draws on political theory and on two case studies – the encounter between Anglo-American settlers and Native American tribes, and the search for Jewish sovereignty in Palestine – to probe the allure of the idea of sovereign freedom and its self-defeating logic. It concludes by shifting its sights from political to economic sovereign power and by pursuing intimations of non-sovereign freedom in the contemporary age.

Democracy and Delusion

Democracy and Delusion PDF Author: Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780624082286
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
Many common political arguments come pre-packaged in an old and dusty box - but the self-evident truths are not, in fact, so indisputable. Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh sets out to dismantle that box. He argues that free education is far from impossible, the ANC's liberation narrative is too idyllic to swallow, land reform is not the first step to chaos, and the media is not free. A fresh perspective on South African politics.

Imperial Delusions

Imperial Delusions PDF Author: Carl Boggs
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742527720
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
In this hard-hitting critique, Carl Boggs argues that the United States is dominated by a new militarism, one that has become more potent and menacing since 9/11. He skillfully explores the origins and development of this new militarism and show its devastating effects on American society.

The Inclusion Delusion?

The Inclusion Delusion? PDF Author: Aislinn O'Donnell
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
ISBN: 9783034317856
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book argues that in order to develop just and inclusive institutions, particularly within the education system, we must begin from the standpoint of those who feel silenced, marginalised and excluded. It makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate about how institutions need to change if they are to become genuinely inclusive.

Popular Delusions: How Social Conformity Molds Society and Politics

Popular Delusions: How Social Conformity Molds Society and Politics PDF Author:
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1621968502
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description


The Net Delusion

The Net Delusion PDF Author: Evgeny Morozov
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610391632
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
"The revolution will be Twittered!" declared journalist Andrew Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran in June 2009. Yet for all the talk about the democratizing power of the Internet, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and repressive as ever. In fact, authoritarian governments are effectively using the Internet to suppress free speech, hone their surveillance techniques, disseminate cutting-edge propaganda, and pacify their populations with digital entertainment. Could the recent Western obsession with promoting democracy by digital means backfire? In this spirited book, journalist and social commentator Evgeny Morozov shows that by falling for the supposedly democratizing nature of the Internet, Western do-gooders may have missed how it also entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder -- not easier -- to promote democracy. Buzzwords like "21st-century statecraft" sound good in PowerPoint presentations, but the reality is that "digital diplomacy" requires just as much oversight and consideration as any other kind of diplomacy. Marshaling compelling evidence, Morozov shows why we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as inherently liberating and why ambitious and seemingly noble initiatives like the promotion of "Internet freedom" might have disastrous implications for the future of democracy as a whole.

Conspiracies of Conspiracies

Conspiracies of Conspiracies PDF Author: Thomas Milan Konda
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022658576X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
It’s tempting to think that we live in an unprecedentedly fertile age for conspiracy theories, with seemingly each churn of the news cycle bringing fresh manifestations of large-scale paranoia. But the sad fact is that these narratives of suspicion—and the delusional psychologies that fuel them—have been a constant presence in American life for nearly as long as there’s been an America. In this sweeping book, Thomas Milan Konda traces the country’s obsession with conspiratorial thought from the early days of the republic to our own anxious moment. Conspiracies of Conspiracies details centuries of sinister speculations—from antisemitism and anti-Catholicism to UFOs and reptilian humanoids—and their often incendiary outcomes. Rather than simply rehashing the surface eccentricities of such theories, Konda draws from his unprecedented assemblage of conspiratorial writing to crack open the mindsets that lead people toward these self-sealing worlds of denial. What is distinctively American about these theories, he argues, is not simply our country’s homegrown obsession with them but their ongoing prevalence and virulence. Konda proves that conspiracy theories are no harmless sideshow. They are instead the dark and secret heart of American political history—one that is poisoning the bloodstream of an increasingly sick body politic.