Blessed Are the Organized

Blessed Are the Organized PDF Author: Jeffrey Stout
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691156654
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
How ordinary citizens band together to bring about real change In an America where the rich and fortunate have free rein to do as they please, can the ideal of liberty and justice for all be anything but an empty slogan? Many Americans are doubtful, and have withdrawn into apathy and cynicism. But thousands of others are not ready to give up on democracy just yet. Working outside the notice of the national media, ordinary citizens across the nation are meeting in living rooms, church basements, synagogues, and schools to identify shared concerns, select and cultivate leaders, and take action. Their goal is to hold big government and big business accountable. In this important new book, Jeffrey Stout bears witness to the successes and failures of progressive grassroots organizing, and the daunting forces now arrayed against it. Stout tells vivid stories of people fighting entrenched economic and political interests around the country. From parents and teachers striving to overcome gang violence in South Central Los Angeles, to a Latino priest north of the Rio Grande who brings his parish into a citizens' organization, to the New Orleans residents who get out the vote by taking a jazz band through streets devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Stout describes how these ordinary people conceive of citizenship, how they acquire and exercise power, and how religious ideas and institutions contribute to their successes. The most important book on organizing and grassroots democracy in a generation, Blessed Are the Organized is a passionate and hopeful account of how our endangered democratic principles can be put into action.

Democracy from the Grass Roots

Democracy from the Grass Roots PDF Author: Joseph I. Abrahams
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1425721850
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
In an historic turn, grassroots America has overcome its apathy and cyclic reversion to the ways of the past, last induced by Islamic fundamentalism. Newly cognizant of its inherent interests, grassroots America has responded to the vision of Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, and fl ocked to the polls. The emotions of politics take front and center. In Democracy From The Grassroots: A Guide to Creative Politics, we examine in depth the political passion of the grassroots and these emergent leaders. Beginning with an inspiring historical overview of grassroots politics in America, the author then guides us through its organizational structures the political clubs, committees, councils, caucuses, and workshops wherein real people work to create real change. A chapter devoted to the analysis of issues, the systems which determine their resolution, and their role in the political campaign, serves to enlighten and motivate the ideal lead-in to an exhaustive section on training. A concise summary integrates the hypotheses set forth about the role of grassroots politics in American social development. And in a unique and compelling twist, that model is then compared to the individual's development as a person. Written by psychoanalyst, political activist and scholar Dr. Joseph Abrahams, Democracy From the Grassroots, A Guide to Creative Political Action presents the pioneering work of three decades in the grassroots trenches. At once a vibrant history lesson and a call to action, this slender volume is as lush in practical howto as it is in thoughtful refl ection and insight. The appendix is remarkable for its richly annotated bibliography and a revealing chronicle of the events and issues of American grassroots movements.

Democratization and Women's Grassroots Movements

Democratization and Women's Grassroots Movements PDF Author: Jill M. Bystydzienski
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253212795
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
The book illustrates how community-based actions, programs, and organizations that allow women to determine their lives and participate in decision making contribute to the creation of a civil society and thus enhance democracy. The case studies show how participation in grassroots movements promotes women's involvement in their organizations, communities, and in societal institutions, as it influences state policy and empowers women in personal relationships.

Blessed Are the Organized

Blessed Are the Organized PDF Author: Jeffrey Stout
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400836077
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
How ordinary citizens band together to bring about real change In an America where the rich and fortunate have free rein to do as they please, can the ideal of liberty and justice for all be anything but an empty slogan? Many Americans are doubtful, and have withdrawn into apathy and cynicism. But thousands of others are not ready to give up on democracy just yet. Working outside the notice of the national media, ordinary citizens across the nation are meeting in living rooms, church basements, synagogues, and schools to identify shared concerns, select and cultivate leaders, and take action. Their goal is to hold big government and big business accountable. In this important new book, Jeffrey Stout bears witness to the successes and failures of progressive grassroots organizing, and the daunting forces now arrayed against it. Stout tells vivid stories of people fighting entrenched economic and political interests around the country. From parents and teachers striving to overcome gang violence in South Central Los Angeles, to a Latino priest north of the Rio Grande who brings his parish into a citizens' organization, to the New Orleans residents who get out the vote by taking a jazz band through streets devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Stout describes how these ordinary people conceive of citizenship, how they acquire and exercise power, and how religious ideas and institutions contribute to their successes. The most important book on organizing and grassroots democracy in a generation, Blessed Are the Organized is a passionate and hopeful account of how our endangered democratic principles can be put into action.

Grassroots Social Action

Grassroots Social Action PDF Author: Charles Vert Willie
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742560499
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Willie and his colleagues analyze social action from the bottom up. The focus is on how people outside the traditional circuits of authority exercise power and how their actions relate to bureaucratic social action from the top down. All told, the contributors offer a critical and empowering assessment of how change occurs in communities.

Take Action & Changing Lives in Minority Communities

Take Action & Changing Lives in Minority Communities PDF Author: Great Lakes Consortium
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781499315639
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
This book is published as part of our current “Building Grassroots Democracy in Minority Communities” grant with success stories connected to this grant. This publication also includes the results of our previous grant “Citizen's Legislative Advocacy in Minority Communities”, both supported by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of Citizen Exchanges, Professional Fellows Division. Our overall goal was on these grants to provide a professional development opportunity for up-and-coming and mid-level professionals from Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia to gain knowledge of U.S. practices in citizen participation and advocacy, engaging, minorities, and marginalized populations in civil society and politics, collaborating with community leaders to inform changes in legislation that make a difference in minority communities (incl. Roma, disabled, homeless, immigrant, LGBT) and build grassroots democracy. These goals were accomplished through two-way exchanges. U.S. mentors from the U.S. internship hosting organizations also were selected to travel for a reciprocal visit overseas. They had an opportunity to share professional expertise and gain a deeper understanding of the societies, cultures and the people of other countries in Europe. This citizen civic exchange promoted mutual understanding, created long-term professional ties not only between the U.S. and the European participants but also among the participants within Europe and within their own country, because most of them did not meet before this exchange. These programs also strengthened the capacity of our European partners and the European Networks. As documented in this book we accomplished our program goals as we were able “to teach democracy in minority communities” by exposing participants to diverse community organizing methods to engage citizens as active participants in solving problems in their communities. Altogether, this program impacted more than 5000 people in Europe and 3000 in the U.S. This people-to-people exchange created long-term linkages between the U.S. and Europe, within the European fellows, and enhanced the collaboration between GLC and its U.S. and overseas collaborating partners. We are continuing to work together on involving more people, providing more training, sharing effective methods and success stories to change lives and help communities to flourish.

Community Power and Grassroots Democracy

Community Power and Grassroots Democracy PDF Author: Michael Kaufman
Publisher: International Development Research Centre Books
ISBN:
Category : Community development
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The collected essays in this book provide a comparative examination of the process of grassroots mobilization and the development of community-based forms of popular democracy in Central and South America. The first part contains studies from individual countries on organizations ranging from those supported by governments and integrated into the country's political structure to groups that were organized against the existing political system. The organizations studied included those focusing on a particular concern, such as housing, and those with wide responsibility for community affairs; but all were organizations based on common interests where people lived and, in some cases, where people worked. The second part offers theme studies on men, women and differential participation; problems and meanings associated with decentralization, especially in relation to devolution of power to the local level and the construction of popular alternatives; and the competing theoretical paradigms of new social movements and resource mobilization.

Japan's Living Politics

Japan's Living Politics PDF Author: Tessa Morris-Suzuki
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108804993
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
The first two decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed a rise of populism and decline of public confidence in many of the formal institutions of democracy. This crisis of democracy has stimulated searches for alternative ways of understanding and enacting politics. Against this background, Tessa Morris-Suzuki explores the long history of informal everyday political action in the Japanese context. Despite its seemingly inflexible and monolithic formal political system, Japan has been the site of many fascinating small-scale experiments in 'informal life politics': grassroots do-it-yourself actions which seek not to lobby governments for change, but to change reality directly, from the bottom up. She explores this neglected history by examining an interlinked series of informal life politics experiments extending from the 1910s to the present day.

Grassroots Democracy in Action

Grassroots Democracy in Action PDF Author: Suresh Misra
Publisher: Concept Publishing Company
ISBN: 9788180691072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
With reference to the functioning of panchayats or local governments in the state of Haryana, India.

Community Power and Grassroots Democracy

Community Power and Grassroots Democracy PDF Author: Michael Kaufman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Community development
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description


Handbook for True Democracy: How the Grassroots Can Create a Nation Of, By and For All the People Through the Evolution of Individual and Organizat

Handbook for True Democracy: How the Grassroots Can Create a Nation Of, By and For All the People Through the Evolution of Individual and Organizat PDF Author: John G. Mentzos
Publisher: U.R.R. Publishing
ISBN: 9780578227863
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Democracy is not just a set of laws and a government structure it's a collective consciousness. The collective consciousness of democracy arises out of human nature when called forth by group psychology and the social constructs and cultural artifacts of a nation. The appropriate collective consciousness for an effective democracy is one that yields culture and process that manages human diversity in equitable ways. But group psychology and the social constructs of a nation can serve as a countervailing force to effective democracy as well. To the extent that such elements create consciousness focused on producing inequity and perpetuating the conflicts that arise out of human diversity, the public consciousness needed for true democracy is lost.