Author: Dick Simpson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 025205329X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
Dick Simpson draws upon his fifty-year career as a legislator, campaign strategist, and government advisor to examine the challenges confronting Americans in their struggle to build the United States as a multiracial, multiethnic democracy. Using Chicago as an example, Simpson examines how the political, racial, economic, and social inequalities dividing the nation play out in our neighborhoods and cities. His investigation of our current crisis and its causes delves into issues like money in politics, low voter participation, the politics of resentment, political corruption, and a host of structural problems. But Democracy’s Rebirth goes beyond analysis. Simpson lays out a sober, practical manifesto meant to inspire people everywhere to educate themselves and do the hard work of creating the kind of strong institutions that will allow true democracy to flourish. With a foreword by Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot.
Author: Nicolai N. Petro
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674750012
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Author: Kent E. Portney
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 9780815723660
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356
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Book Description
In an era when government seems remote and difficult to approach, participatory democracy may seem a hopelessly romantic notion. Yet nothing is more crucial to the future of American democracy than to develop some way of spurring greater citizen participation. In this important book, Jeffrey Berry, Ken Portney, and Ken Thompson examine cities that have created systems of neighborhood government and incorporated citizens in public policymaking. Through careful research and analysis, the authors find that neighborhood based participation is the key to revitalizing American democracy. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy provides a thorough examination of five cities with strong citizen participation programs--Birmingham, Dayton, Portland, St. Paul, and San Antonio. In each city, the authors explore whether neighborhood associations encourage more people to participate; whether these associations are able to promote policy responsiveness on the art of local governments; and whether participation in these associations increases the capacity of people to take part in government. Finally, the authors outline the steps that can be taken to increase political participation in urban America. Berry, Portney, and Thomson show that citizens in participatory programs are able to get their issues on the public agenda and develop a stronger sense of community, greater trust in government officials, and more confidence in the political system. From a rigorous evaluation of surveys and interviews with thousands of citizens and policymakers, the authors also find that central governments in these cities are highly responsive to their neighborhoods and that less conflict exists among citizens and policymakers. The authors assert that these programs can provide a blueprint for major reform in cities across the country. They outline the components for successful participation programs and offer recommendations for those who want to get involved. They demonstrate that participatio
Author: Jonah Goldberg
Publisher: Forum Books
ISBN: 110190495X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An urgent argument that America and other democracies are in peril because they have lost the will to defend the values and institutions that sustain freedom and prosperity. Now updated with a new preface! “Epic and debate-shifting.”—David Brooks, New York Times Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle. As Americans we are doubly blessed, because the radical ideas that made the miracle possible were written not just into the Constitution but in our hearts, laying the groundwork for our uniquely prosperous society. Those ideas are: • Our rights come from God, not from the government. • The government belongs to us; we do not belong to it. • The individual is sovereign. We are all captains of our own souls, not bound by the circumstances of our birth. • The fruits of our labors belong to us. In the last few decades, these political virtues have been turned into vices. As we are increasingly taught to view our traditions as a system of oppression, exploitation, and privilege, the principles of liberty and the rule of law are under attack from left and right. For the West to survive, we must renew our sense of gratitude for what our civilization has given us and rediscover the ideals and habits of the heart that led us out of the bloody muck of the past—or back to the muck we will go.
Author: Sabrina P. Ramet
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633863104
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 494
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Book Description
Alternatives to Democracy in Twentieth-Century Europe examines the historical examples of Soviet Communism, Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and Spanish Anarchism, suggesting that, in spite of their differences, they had some key features in common, in particular their shared hostility to individualism, representative government, laissez faire capitalism, and the decadence they associated with modern culture. But rather than seeking to return to earlier ways of working these movements and regimes sought to design a new future – an alternative future – that would restore the nation to spiritual and political health. The Fascists, for their part, specifically promoted palingenesis, which is to say the spiritual rebirth of the nation. The book closes with a long epilogue, in which Ramet defends liberal democracy, highlighting its strengths and advantages. In this chapter, the author identifies five key choke points, which would-be authoritarians typically seek to control, subvert, or instrumentalize: electoral rules, the judiciary, the media, hate speech, and surveillance, and looks at the cases of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Jarosław Kaczyński’s Poland, and Donald Trump’s United States.
Author: Frances Moore Lappe
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0787983357
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 493
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Book Description
Three out of five Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, feel our country is headed in the wrong direction. America is at the edge, a critical place at which we can either renew and revitalize or give in and lose that most precious American ideal--democracy--and along with it the freedom, fairness, and opportunities it assures. Democracy's Edge is a rousing battle cry that we can--and must--act now. From Jefferson to Eisenhower, presidents from both parties have warned us of the danger of letting a closed, narrow group of business and government officials concentrate power over our lives. Yet today, a small and unrepresentative group of people is making vital decisions for all of us. But this crisis is only a symptom, Lappé argues. It's a symptom of thin democracy, something done to us or for us, not by or with us. Such democracy is always at risk of being stolen by private interests or extremist groups, left and right. But there is a solution. The answer, says Lappé, is Living Democracy, a powerful yet often invisible citizens' revolution surging in communities across America. It's not random, disjointed activism but the emergence of a new historical stage of democracy in which Americans realize that democracy isn't something we have but something we do. Either we live it or lose it, says Lappé.
Author: Richard Seymour
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786632993
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374
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Book Description
How Jeremy Corbyn, the radical left candidate for the Labour leadership, won twice—and won big In the 2017 general election, Jeremy Corbyn pulled off an historic upset, attracting the biggest increase in the Labour vote since 1945. It was another reversal of expectations for the mainstream media and his ‘soft-left’ detractors. Demolishing the Blairite opposition in 2015, Corbyn had already seen off an attempted coup. Now, he had shattered the government’s authority, and even Corbyn’s most vitriolic critics have been forced into stunned mea culpas. For the first time in decades, socialism is back on the agenda—and for the first time in Labour’s history, it defines the leadership. Richard Seymour tells the story of how Corbyn’s rise was made possible by the long decline of Labour and by a deep crisis in British democracy. He shows how Corbyn began the task of rebuilding Labour as a grassroots party, with a coalition of trade unionists, young and precarious workers, students and ‘Old Labour’ pugilists, who then became the biggest campaigning army in British politics. Utilizing social media, activists turned the media’s Project Fear on its head and broke the ideological monopoly of the tabloids. After the election, with all the artillery still ranged against Corbyn, and with all the weaknesses of the Left’s revival, Seymour asks what Corbyn can do with his newfound success.
Author: Bernard Tamas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351128248
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297
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Book Description
Virtually all academic books on American third parties in the last half-century assume that they have largely disappeared. This book challenges that orthodoxy by explaining the (temporary) decline of third parties, demonstrating through the latest evidence that they are enjoying a resurgence, and arguing that they are likely to once again play a significant role in American politics. The book is based on a wealth of data, including district-level results from US House of Representatives elections, state-level election laws after the Civil War, and recent district-level election results from Australia, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom.
Author: Geoffrey R. McIntyre Ph.D.
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
ISBN: 164544158X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206
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Book Description
Although the prescient Founders provided a means, Article Five, to change America's two-hundred- and thirty-two-year old Constitution and democratic-liberal governance, the hard truths of political compromise, civility and Presidential leadership in ideology-driven public policy, are the stuff of 'greatness' in American civilization. Modern post-World War II social historians arguably credit President Lyndon Johnson's 1964 massive Federal government intervention and anti-poverty efforts to achieve a 'Great Society.' Others may cite President Richard Nixon's Federal intervention to protect the environment, assure clean air, drinking water and end housing discrimination. President Ronald Reagan's paradigm shift, looked to lessen government's regulatory role and instead to 'trickle down' market forces, for his resonating slogan "Let's Make America Great Again." In 2010, President Barack Obama's landmark achievement of the Affordable Care Act, provided health care coverage to over thirty million Americans. By 2017, President Donald Trump, trademarked MAGA and provided massive, deficit-ballooning, tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy, sought to repeal environmental protection, health care legislation, and auto-fuel standards; minimized the federal regulatory oversight role in air travel safety assessments; initiated trade tariffs and adopted anti-immigration, anti-refugees and anti-asylum-seeking measures. Whether at the individual self or nation level, the road to 'greatness', first either affirms or solemnly swears to the rule of law and truth telling. A road trip by a team of investigative reporters revealed many deflections (rendered in free verse poetry) from America's quest for 'greatness:' from the delusional dance of the anti-government discontents; tax avoiding corporations, billionaires and wannabe trillionaires--all protected by the world's mightiest military and judiciary; the discontented food-fighters, demanding non-discriminatory, plain language access to labels on what they eat or drink; the plundered low wage workers (many most likely undocumented) in liberal, blue cities--whose crie de coeur 'middle-up,' highlighted the income disparities of the 'haves' and the 'have-mores:' from fired American high-tech professionals demanding an end to the illegal visa abuse of lower-paid, sought-after graduates of leading foreign technical universities; to the threatened deportations of American-born children. Tragically, planet earth faces the absurd consequences of mindless self-destruction caused by man-made pollution for untaxed profits; and many other bold newer threats, including the approaching hordes of climate change refugees. Unlike the many unknowns of a Shakespearean tragedy, we know the remaining acts necessary to sustain life on planet earth's annual free ride around the sun. Yet, a despoiled earth appears inexorably poised on the path of abandonment by the trillionaire class for a new planetary home. Bon Voyage!
Author: United States. President (1993-2001 : Clinton)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Presidents
Languages : en
Pages : 1494
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Book Description
