Cuba and Its Neighbours

Cuba and Its Neighbours PDF Author: Arnold August
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN: 9781848138667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this groundbreaking book, Arnold August explores Cuba's unique form of democracy, presenting a detailed and balanced analysis of Cuba's electoral process and the state's functioning between elections. By comparing them with practices in the U.S., Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, August shows that people's participation in politics and society is not limited to a singular, U.S.- centric understanding of democracy. Through this deft analysis, August illustrates how the process of democratization in Cuba is continually in motion and argues that a greater understanding of different political systems teaches us to not be satisfied with either blanket condemnations or idealistic political illusions.

Cuba and Its Neighbours

Cuba and Its Neighbours PDF Author: Arnold August
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN: 9781848138667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this groundbreaking book, Arnold August explores Cuba's unique form of democracy, presenting a detailed and balanced analysis of Cuba's electoral process and the state's functioning between elections. By comparing them with practices in the U.S., Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, August shows that people's participation in politics and society is not limited to a singular, U.S.- centric understanding of democracy. Through this deft analysis, August illustrates how the process of democratization in Cuba is continually in motion and argues that a greater understanding of different political systems teaches us to not be satisfied with either blanket condemnations or idealistic political illusions.

Democracy in Motion

Democracy in Motion PDF Author: Tina Nabatchi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019999613X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Although the field of deliberative civic engagement is growing rapidly around the world, our knowledge and understanding of its practice and impacts remain highly fragmented. Democracy in Motion represents the first comprehensive attempt to assess the practice and impact of deliberative civic engagement. Organized in a series of chapters that address the big questions of deliberative civic engagement, it uses theory, research, and practice from around the world to explore what we know about, how we know it, and what remains to be understood. More than a simple summary of research, the book is designed to be accessible and useful to a wide variety of audiences, from scholars and practitioners working in numerous disciplines and fields, to public officials, activists, and average citizens who are seeking to utilize deliberative civic engagement in their communities. The book significantly enhances current scholarship, serving as a guide to existing research and identifying useful future research. It also has promise for enhancing practice, for example by helping practitioners, public officials, and others better think through and articulate issues of design and outcomes, thus enabling them to garner more support for public deliberation activities. In addition, by identifying what remains to be learned about public deliberation, practitioners and public officials may be inspired to connect with scholars to conduct research and evaluations of their efforts.

Cuba and Its Neighbours

Cuba and Its Neighbours PDF Author: Arnold August
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
ISBN: 9781552664049
Category : Cuba
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this groundbreaking book, Arnold August explores Cuba's unique form of democracy, presenting a detailed and balanced analysis of Cuba's electoral process and the state's functioning between elections. By comparing it with practices in the U.S., Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, August shows that people's participation in politics and society is not limited to a singular U.S.-centric understanding of democracy. For example, democracy as practised in the U.S. is largely non-participatory, static and fixed in time. Cuba, by contrast, is a laboratory where the process of democratization is continually in motion, an ongoing experiment to create new ways for people to participate. August argues forcefully for the need to develop mutual understanding of different political systems and, in doing so, to not be satisfied with either blanket condemnation or idealistic illusions, both resulting from a refusal to analyze the actual inner workings of each process. Visit www.democracycuba.com for more details.

Democracy in Motion

Democracy in Motion PDF Author: Tina Nabatchi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199899266
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
Democracy in Motion uses theory, research, and practice to comprehensively explore what we know, how we know it, and what remains to be understood about deliberative civic engagement. The book is useful to scholars, practitioners, public officials, activists, and citizens who seek to utilize deliberative civic engagement in their communities.

Democracy in Motion

Democracy in Motion PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Beasts and Gods

Beasts and Gods PDF Author: Roslyn Fuller
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1783605448
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Democracy does not deliver on the things we have assumed are its natural outcomes. This, coupled with a growing sense of malaise in both new and established democracies forms the basis to the assertion made by some, that these are not democracies at all. Through considerable, impressive empirical analysis of a variety of voting methods, across twenty different nations, Roslyn Fuller presents the data that makes this contention indisputable. Proving that the party which forms the government rarely receives the majority of the popular vote, that electoral systems regularly produce manufactured majorities and that the better funded side invariably wins such contests in both elections and referenda, Fuller's findings challenge the most fundamental elements of both national politics and broader society. Beast and Gods argues for a return to democracy as perceived by the ancient Athenians. Boldly arguing for the necessity of the Aristotelian assumption that citizens are agents whose wishes and aims can be attained through participation in politics, and through an examination of what “goods” are provided by democracy, Fuller offers a powerful challenge to the contemporary liberal view that there are no "goods" in politics, only individual citizens seeking to fulfil their particular interests.

Democracy as Fetish

Democracy as Fetish PDF Author: Ralph Cintron
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271085630
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Democracy has long been fetishized. Consequently, how we speak about democracy and what we expect from democratic governance are at odds with practice. With unflinching resolve, this book probes the theory of democracy and how the left and right are fascinated by it. In this innovative multidisciplinary study, Ralph Cintron provides sustained analysis of our political discourse. He shows not only how the rhetoric of democracy produces strong desires for social order, global wealth, and justice but also how these desires cannot be satisfied. Throughout his discussion, Cintron includes ethnographic research from fieldwork conducted over the course of twenty years in the Latino neighborhoods of Chicago, where he observes both citizens and the undocumented looking to democracy to fulfill their highest aspirations. Politicians hand out favors to the elite, developers strong-arm aldermen, and the disenfranchised have little redress. The problem, Cintron argues, is that the conditions required to put democracy into practice—territory, a bordered nation-state, citizens, property—are constituted by inequality and violence, because there is no inclusivity that does not also exclude. Drawing on ethnography, economics, political theory, and rhetorical analysis, Cintron makes his case with tremendous analytic rigor. This challenge to reassess the discourses on democracy and to consider democratic politics as always compromised by oligarchy will be of particular interest to political and rhetorical theorists.

Next Generation Democracy

Next Generation Democracy PDF Author: Jared Duval
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608194841
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
The problems of the 21st century are of unprecedented scale. Climate change, financial instability, the housing crisis, the need for health care: all of these are political issues that could be managed with ease on a much smaller scale. But with an enormous global population, that kind of change is no longer an option. As a result, some of the large bodies we once appointed to manage macroscopic problems--such as the government--have begun to fail us. Never was this more clear than during Hurricane Katrina, when individual efforts and decentralized organizations were more efficient, swifter, and better suited to the task than, say, FEMA. But, according to the hard-charging and ambitious Jared Duval, there is good news. Accompanying the expansion of these social problems has been an explosion in information technology, and we are quickly discovering the power of collaboration. Obama's town hall meetings are just the beginning of something larger--a movement towards what he refers to as "open-source" principles. By sharing information and letting systems grow themselves, we can devise new programs that will tackle these sprawling problems. Kiva's innovative micro-lending principles are making impressive progress with huge, intractable problems like world hunger and poverty. The Open-Source Society is more than a persuasive argument, though. It is a manifesto, a narrative both personal and reportorial, and an empowering call to arms. Duval's spirit and intelligence are infectious, and his message is important.

The A, B & C of Democracy, Or, Cats in the Sack

The A, B & C of Democracy, Or, Cats in the Sack PDF Author: Luca Belgiorno-Nettis
Publisher: Carlow Books
ISBN: 9781760643379
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
This is a learner's guide to a better democracy. Sounds ambitious? It is. The catalyst for publishing this book is obvious. There's no need to regurgitate the public's disaffection with politics. Mired in the tawdry mechanics of political campaigning, and incapable of climbing out of cyclical electioneering contests, representative democracies are stuck in a rut. As Dawn Nakagawa, Vice President of the Berggruen Institute, writes, 'Democratic reform is hard. We are very attached to our constitutions and institutions, even to the point of romanticising it all.' This handbook is an introduction to minipublics -- otherwise known as citizens' juries or assemblies -- interspersed with a few travel anecdotes to share the momentum behind the basic methodology of deliberative democracy. As the world accelerates into its digital future -- with new modes of working, connecting and living -- our parliaments remain relics from a primordial, ideological and adversarial age. Meanwhile urgent political challenges are stumbling to half-solutions in slow-motion. Collaboration amongst us humans in the Anthropocene is no longer just a nice-to-have.

Democracy and Education

Democracy and Education PDF Author: John Dewey
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.