Author: Hubert J. M. Hermans
Publisher:
ISBN: 0197501028
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
Inner Democracy: Empowering the Mind Against a Polarizing Society investigates the psychological backgrounds of contemporary societal problems such as hate speech, authoritarianism, and divisive forms of identity politics, and how we can counter such destructive forces. The book argues that a democratic society needs citizens who do more than just express their preference for free elections, freedom of speech, and respect of constitutional rights. Rather, democracy is vital only if it is deeply rooted in the hearts, minds, and selves of its participants. In the field of tension created by societal power clashes and absolute truth pretensions, the book investigates how opposition, cooperation, and participation work as innovative forces in a democratic self. Democracy is understood as a personal learning process and as a dialogical play between thought and counter-thought, between imagination and counter-imagination, and between emotion and reason. Written for social scientists, teachers, journalists, and parents who are interested in the facilitation of democracy in a wide variety of situations, this book proposes inner democracy as an antidote against the widespread polarization in our society.
Author: Tzvetan Todorov
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745685781
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 125
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Book Description
The political history of the twentieth century can be viewed as the history of democracy’s struggle against its external enemies: fascism and communism. This struggle ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet regime. Some people think that democracy now faces new enemies: Islamic fundamentalism, religious extremism and international terrorism and that this is the struggle that will define our times. Todorov disagrees: the biggest threat to democracy today is democracy itself. Its enemies are within: what the ancient Greeks called 'hubris'. Todorov argues that certain democratic values have been distorted and pushed to an extreme that serves the interests of dominant states and powerful individuals. In the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’, the United States and some European countries have embarked on a crusade to enlighten some foreign populations through the use of force. Yet this mission to ‘help’ others has led to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, to large-scale destruction and loss of life and to a moral crisis of growing proportions. The defence of freedom, if unlimited, can lead to the tyranny of individuals. Drawing on recent history as well as his own experience of growing up in a totalitarian regime, Todorov returns to examples borrowed from the Western canon: from a dispute between Augustine and Pelagius to the fierce debates among Enlightenment thinkers to explore the origin of these perversions of democracy. He argues compellingly that the real democratic ideal is to be found in the delicate, ever-changing balance between competing principles, popular sovereignty, freedom and progress. When one of these elements breaks free and turns into an over-riding principle, it becomes dangerous: populism, ultra-liberalism and messianism, the inner enemies of democracy.
Author: Geoffrey Kurtz
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271065826
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213
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Book Description
Jean Jaurès was a towering intellectual and political leader of the democratic Left at the turn of the twentieth century, but he is little remembered today outside of France, and his contributions to political thought are little studied anywhere. In Jean Jaurès: The Inner Life of Social Democracy, Geoffrey Kurtz introduces Jaurès to an American audience. The parliamentary and philosophical leader of French socialism from the 1890s until his assassination in 1914, Jaurès was the only major socialist leader of his generation who was educated as a political philosopher. As he championed the reformist method that would come to be called social democracy, he sought to understand the inner life of a political tradition that accepts its own imperfection. Jaurès's call to sustain the tension between the ideal and the real resonates today. In addition to recovering the questions asked by the first generation of social democrats, Kurtz’s aim in this book is to reconstruct Jaurès’s political thought in light of current theoretical and political debates. To achieve this, he gives readings of several of Jaurès’s major writings and speeches, spanning work from his early adulthood to the final years of his life, paying attention to not just what Jaurès is saying, but how he says it.
Author: Stephen L. Vaughn
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469610272
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 511
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Book Description
The Committee on Public Information, the major American propaganda agency during World War I, attracted a wide range of reform-oriented men and women who tried to generate enthusiasm for Wilson's international and domestic ideals. Vaughn shows that the CPI encouraged an imperial presidency, urged limits on free speech and called for an almost mystical attachment to the nation, but it also tried to present dispassionately the causes of American intervention in the war. Originally published in 1980. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Author: Christopher Castiglia
Publisher: Duke University Press Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
DIVExplores changing forms of interiority as produced in relation to the state in nineteenth century America and the current day./div
Author: J. Douglas Smith
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809074230
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
"The inside story of the Supreme Court decisions that brought true democracy to the United States Today, Earl Warren is recalled as the chief justice of a Supreme Court that introduced school desegregation and other dramatic changes to American society. In retirement, however, Warren argued that his court's greatest accomplishment was establishing the principle of "one person, one vote" in state legislative and congressional redistricting. Malapportionment, Warren recognized, subverted the will of the majority, privileging rural voters, and often business interests and whites, over others. In declaring nearly all state legislatures unconstitutional, the court oversaw a revolution that transformed the exercise of political power in the United States. On Democracy's Doorstep tells the story of this crucial--and neglected--episode. J. Douglas Smith follows lawyers, activists, and Justice Department officials as they approach the court. We see Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy pushing for radical change and idealistic lawyers in Alabama bravely defying their peers. We then watch as the justices edge toward their momentous decision. The Washington Post called the result a step "toward establishing democracy in the United States." But not everyone agreed; Smith shows that business lobbies and their political allies attempted to overturn the court by calling the first Constitutional Convention since the 1780s. Thirty-three states ratified their petition--just one short of the two-thirds required"--
Author: Ian Shapiro
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521643894
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
Conference papers.Companion to: Democracy's value. Includes Bibliographical references and index.
Author: Frances Rosenbluth
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300241054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
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Book Description
How popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide, and how to restore confidence in democratic politics In recent decades, democracies across the world have adopted measures to increase popular involvement in political decisions. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates; ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly; many places now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more specific parties rather than two dominant ones.Yet voters keep getting angrier.There is a steady erosion of trust in politicians, parties, and democratic institutions, culminating most recently in major populist victories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Frances Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro argue that devolving power to the grass roots is part of the problem. Efforts to decentralize political decision-making have made governments and especially political parties less effective and less able to address constituents’ long-term interests. They argue that to restore confidence in governance, we must restructure our political systems to restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.
Author: James G. Gimpel
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 9780815796145
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
Scholars across several social science disciplines have indicated that the behavior described by the term "civic engagement" is girded by a set of attitudes that show knowledge about, and positive evaluations of, government and politics. Drawing on extensive interviews with high school students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, Cultivating Democracy examines the sources of those attitudes, including individual characteristics, and the qualities of local environments that shape the experiences of late adolescence. The authors gathered data on adolescent attitudes by interviewing students in a wide variety of locations, from Baltimore's inner city and suburbs to the most affluent communities in Montgomery County, Maryland. Focusing initially on attitudes toward ethnic diversity and immigration, the authors expanded their focus to the political socialization of young people, including patriotism and political knowledge and participation. The authors demonstrate how political socialization is shaped through the social messages presented to citizens by others. According to Gimpel, Lay, and Schuknecht, while formal education as a means of socializing youth is critically important, other useful means for communicating positive socializing messages, through political parties, elections, and the media, have been ignored. They recommend compensatory strategies to promote civic engagement among those who are at risk to be nonparticipants.
Author: Thomas D. Seeley
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140083595X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
How honeybees make collective decisions—and what we can learn from this amazing democratic process Honeybees make decisions collectively—and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision making. A remarkable and richly illustrated account of scientific discovery, Honeybee Democracy brings together, for the first time, decades of Seeley's pioneering research to tell the amazing story of house hunting and democratic debate among the honeybees. In the late spring and early summer, as a bee colony becomes overcrowded, a third of the hive stays behind and rears a new queen, while a swarm of thousands departs with the old queen to produce a daughter colony. Seeley describes how these bees evaluate potential nest sites, advertise their discoveries to one another, engage in open deliberation, choose a final site, and navigate together—as a swirling cloud of bees—to their new home. Seeley investigates how evolution has honed the decision-making methods of honeybees over millions of years, and he considers similarities between the ways that bee swarms and primate brains process information. He concludes that what works well for bees can also work well for people: any decision-making group should consist of individuals with shared interests and mutual respect, a leader's influence should be minimized, debate should be relied upon, diverse solutions should be sought, and the majority should be counted on for a dependable resolution. An impressive exploration of animal behavior, Honeybee Democracy shows that decision-making groups, whether honeybee or human, can be smarter than even the smartest individuals in them.
