Author: Xavier De Souza Briggs
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262262010
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 389
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Book Description
Case studies from around the world and theoretical discussion show how the capacity to act collectively on local problems can be developed, strengthening democracy while changing social and economic outcomes. Complexity, division, mistrust, and “process paralysis” can thwart leaders and others when they tackle local challenges. In Democracy as Problem Solving, Xavier de Souza Briggs shows how civic capacity—the capacity to create and sustain smart collective action—can be developed and used. In an era of sharp debate over the conditions under which democracy can develop while broadening participation and building community, Briggs argues that understanding and building civic capacity is crucial for strengthening governance and changing the state of the world in the process. More than managing a contest among interest groups or spurring deliberation to reframe issues, democracy can be what the public most desires: a recipe for significant progress on important problems. Briggs examines efforts in six cities, in the United States, Brazil, India, and South Africa, that face the millennial challenges of rapid urban growth, economic restructuring, and investing in the next generation. These challenges demand the engagement of government, business, and nongovernmental sectors. And the keys to progress include the ability to combine learning and bargaining continuously, forge multiple forms of accountability, and find ways to leverage the capacity of the grassroots and what Briggs terms the “grasstops,” regardless of who initiates change or who participates over time. Civic capacity, Briggs shows, can—and must—be developed even in places that lack traditions of cooperative civic action.
Author: Nancy Isenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525557520
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 578
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Book Description
"Told with authority and style. . . Crisply summarizing the Adamses' legacy, the authors stress principle over partisanship."--The Wall Street Journal How the father and son presidents foresaw the rise of the cult of personality and fought those who sought to abuse the weaknesses inherent in our democracy. Until now, no one has properly dissected the intertwined lives of the second and sixth (father and son) presidents. John and John Quincy Adams were brilliant, prickly politicians and arguably the most independently minded among leaders of the founding generation. Distrustful of blind allegiance to a political party, they brought a healthy skepticism of a brand-new system of government to the country's first 50 years. They were unpopular for their fears of the potential for demagoguery lurking in democracy, and--in a twist that predicted the turn of twenty-first century politics--they warned against, but were unable to stop, the seductive appeal of political celebrities Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. In a bold recasting of the Adamses' historical roles, The Problem of Democracy is a major critique of the ways in which their prophetic warnings have been systematically ignored over the centuries. It's also an intimate family drama that brings out the torment and personal hurt caused by the gritty conduct of early American politics. Burstein and Isenberg make sense of the presidents' somewhat iconoclastic, highly creative engagement with America's political and social realities. By taking the temperature of American democracy, from its heated origins through multiple upheavals, the authors reveal the dangers and weaknesses that have been present since the beginning. They provide a clear-eyed look at a decoy democracy that masks the reality of elite rule while remaining open, since the days of George Washington, to a very undemocratic result in the formation of a cult surrounding the person of an elected leader.
Author: Luca Tomini
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351209493
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
The effectiveness and capacity of survival of democratic regimes has been recently and widely questioned in the public and political debate. Both democratic institutions and political actors are increasingly confronted with rapid economic and societal transformations that, at least according to some observers and commentators, they not seem to be ready or equipped to manage effectively. This book evaluates and challenges recent scholarly literature on the quality of democracy. It provides a critical assessment of the current state of the studies on the subject, identifying the key questions and discussing open issues, alternative approaches, problems and future developments. Bringing together some of the most prominent and distinguished scholars who have developed and discussed the topic of the quality of democracy during the last decade, it deals with a highly relevant topic in political science and extremely sensitive subject for our democratic societies. This text will be of key interest to scholars of democracy and democratization and more broadly to comparative politics, electoral studies, political theory, power and comparative political institutions.
Author: Gedeon Mudacumura
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3319031430
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Despite the large amounts of human and financial resources invested to foster democratic governance in developing countries, statistics show that the majority of these countries have not yet achieved significant improvements in living standards. While some regions make strides towards improving the living conditions of their citizens, Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, is still trapped in poverty with more than 40% of its 600 million people living below the internationally recognized absolute poverty line of one US dollar per day. Poor governance and corruption should be highlighted as the most important systemic factors contributing to poverty in developing countries. As a result the institutional foundations of these countries are weakened, public funds are misappropriated, and policies and programs aimed at reducing poverty and fostering sustainable economic growth are undermined. It is therefore not surprising that a 2008 Transparency International report found a direct link between corruption and the failure of the societal institutions designed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in the majority of developing countries. This book investigates the problems of democratic governance, particularly as they relate to corruption, and also whether democracy should be based on universal principles or local context and historical factors. It also analyses the rule of law, in promoting democratic governance and curbing corruption and if governmental, non-governmental organizations, and civil societies are effective in promoting democratic governance and curbing corruption. This book will go beyond identifying the challenges and offer plausible solutions that could be adapted to various developing countries. It is premised on the importance of bridging theory and practice, which has been lacking in most local and international development publications, making of interest to scholars and policy-makers alike concerned with public administration in developing countries.
Author: Jason Brennan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888395
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
A bracingly provocative challenge to one of our most cherished ideas and institutions Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. But Jason Brennan says they are all wrong. In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results—and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant and the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse—more irrational, biased, and mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government—epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable—may be better than democracy, and that it's time to experiment and find out. A challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable, Against Democracy is essential reading for scholars and students of politics across the disciplines. Featuring a new preface that situates the book within the current political climate and discusses other alternatives beyond epistocracy, Against Democracy is a challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable.
Author: Ilya Somin
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804789312
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Often, many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This may be rational, but it creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know. In Democracy and Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin mines the depths of ignorance in America and reveals the extent to which it is a major problem for democracy. Somin weighs various options for solving this problem, arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government. Somin provocatively argues that people make better decisions when they choose what to purchase in the market or which state or local government to live under, than when they vote at the ballot box, because they have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information and to use it wisely.
Author: Wolfgang Merkel
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319725599
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 373
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Book Description
In light of the public and scholarly debates on the challenges and problems of established democracies, such as a lack of participation, declining confidence in political elites, and the deteriorating capabilities of democratic institutions, this volume discusses the question whether democracy as such is in crisis. On the basis of the shared concept of embedded democracy, it develops a range of conceptual approaches to empirically analyzing the challenges of democracy and their potential transformation into crisis phenomena. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which highlights various aspects of political participation, such as political inequality in voting. In turn, Part II focuses on problems of political representation, while Part III assesses whether processes such as globalization, deregulation, and the withdrawal of the state from important policy areas have limited the political control and legitimacy of democratically elected governments.
Author: Thames Williamson
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 572
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Book Description
"Problems in American Democracy" is an early 20th-century study on the historical background of American democracy, its origin, development, and promise for the future. The book pays special attention to the nation's economic life, mainly such social problems as industrial relations, health in the industry, and immigration.
Author: Thames Williamson
Publisher: IndyPublish.com
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 594
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Book Description
Author: Patti Tamara Lenard
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271058889
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
Banning minarets by referendum in Switzerland, publicly burning Korans in the United States, prohibiting kirpans in public spaces in Canada—these are all examples of the rising backlash against diversity that is spreading across multicultural societies. Trust has always been precarious, and never more so than as a result of increased immigration. The number of religions, races, ethnicities, and cultures living together in democratic communities and governed by shared political institutions is rising. The failure to construct public policy to cope with this diversity—to ensure that trust can withstand the pressure that diversity can pose—is a failure of democracy. The threat to trust originates in the perception that the values and norms that should underpin a public culture are no longer truly shared. Therefore, societies must focus on building trust through a revitalized public culture. In Trust, Democracy, and Multicultural Challenges, Patti Tamara Lenard plots a course for this revitalization. She argues that trust is at the center of effective democratic politics, that increasing ethnocultural diversity as a result of immigration may generate distrust, and therefore that democratic communities must work to generate the conditions under which trust between newcomers and “native” citizens can be built, so that the quality of democracy is sustained.
