Prologue to a Farce

Prologue to a Farce PDF Author: Mark Lloyd
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252091752
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
“A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both.”--James Madison, 1822 Mark Lloyd has crafted a complex and powerful assessment of the relationship between communication and democracy in the United States. In Prologue to a Farce, he argues that citizens’ political capabilities depend on broad public access to media technologies, but that the U.S. communications environment has become unfairly dominated by corporate interests. Drawing on a wealth of historical sources, Lloyd demonstrates that despite the persistent hope that a new technology (from the telegraph to the Internet) will rise to serve the needs of the republic, none has solved the fundamental problems created by corporate domination. After examining failed alternatives to the strong publicly owned communications model, such as antitrust regulation, the public trustee rules of the Federal Communications Commission, and the underfunded public broadcasting service, Lloyd argues that we must re-create a modern version of the Founder’s communications environment, and offers concrete strategies aimed at empowering citizens.

Prologue to a Farce

Prologue to a Farce PDF Author: Mark Lloyd
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252091752
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Get Book Here

Book Description
“A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both.”--James Madison, 1822 Mark Lloyd has crafted a complex and powerful assessment of the relationship between communication and democracy in the United States. In Prologue to a Farce, he argues that citizens’ political capabilities depend on broad public access to media technologies, but that the U.S. communications environment has become unfairly dominated by corporate interests. Drawing on a wealth of historical sources, Lloyd demonstrates that despite the persistent hope that a new technology (from the telegraph to the Internet) will rise to serve the needs of the republic, none has solved the fundamental problems created by corporate domination. After examining failed alternatives to the strong publicly owned communications model, such as antitrust regulation, the public trustee rules of the Federal Communications Commission, and the underfunded public broadcasting service, Lloyd argues that we must re-create a modern version of the Founder’s communications environment, and offers concrete strategies aimed at empowering citizens.

Learning Democracy in School and Society: Education, Lifelong Learning, and the Politics of Citizenship

Learning Democracy in School and Society: Education, Lifelong Learning, and the Politics of Citizenship PDF Author: Gert J.J. Biesta
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9460915124
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 111

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Book Description
This book explores the relationships between education, lifelong learning and democratic citizenship. It emphasises the importance of the democratic quality of the processes and practices that make up the everyday lives of children, young people and adults for their ongoing formation as democratic citizens. The book combines theoretical and historical work with critical analysis of policies and wider developments in the field of citizenship education and civic learning. The book urges educators, educationalists, policy makers and politicians to move beyond an exclusive focus on the teaching of citizenship towards an outlook that acknowledges the ongoing processes and practices of civic learning in school and society. This is not only important in order to understand the complexities of such learning. It can also help to formulate more realistic expectations about what schools and other educational institutions can contribute to the promotion of democratic citizenship. The book is particularly suited for students, researchers and policy makers who have an interest in citizenship education, civic learning and the relationships between education, lifelong learning and democratic citizenship. Gert Biesta (www.gertbiesta.com) is Professor of Education at the School of Education, University of Stirling, UK.

Democracy

Democracy PDF Author: Paul Cartledge
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199837457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
"Democracy: A Life holds out three unique research aims: a proper understanding of the origins and variety of ancient Greek democracies; a detailed account of the fate of democracy - both the institution and the word - in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds from the fifth century BCE to the 6th century CE; and a nuanced exploration of the ways in which all ancient Greek democracies differed from all modern so-called 'democracies'"--

Democracy and the Market

Democracy and the Market PDF Author: Adam Przeworski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521423359
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
The quest for freedom from hunger and repression has triggered in recent years a dramatic, worldwide reform of political and economic systems. Never have so many people enjoyed, or at least experimented with democratic institutions. However, many strategies for economic development in Eastern Europe and Latin America have failed with the result that entire economic systems on both continents are being transformed. This major book analyzes recent transitions to democracy and market-oriented economic reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Drawing in a quite distinctive way on models derived from political philosophy, economics, and game theory, Professor Przeworski also considers specific data on individual countries. Among the questions raised by the book are: What should we expect from these experiments in democracy and market economy? What new economic systems will emerge? Will these transitions result in new democracies or old dictatorships?

On Democracy's Doorstep

On Democracy's Doorstep PDF 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"--

Insurgent Democracy

Insurgent Democracy PDF Author: Michael J. Lansing
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022628364X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
In 1915, western farmers mounted one of the most significant challenges to party politics America has seen: the Nonpartisan League, which sought to empower citizens and restrain corporate influence. Before its collapse in the 1920s, the League counted over 250,000 paying members, spread to thirteen states and two Canadian provinces, controlled North Dakota’s state government, and birthed new farmer-labor alliances. Yet today it is all but forgotten, neglected even by scholars. Michael J. Lansing aims to change that. Insurgent Democracy offers a new look at the Nonpartisan League and a new way to understand its rise and fall in the United States and Canada. Lansing argues that, rather than a spasm of populist rage that inevitably burned itself out, the story of the League is in fact an instructive example of how popular movements can create lasting change. Depicting the League as a transnational response to economic inequity, Lansing not only resurrects its story of citizen activism, but also allows us to see its potential to inform contemporary movements.

Civil Society

Civil Society PDF Author: Brian O'Connell
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 9780874519259
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
O'Connell offers an action guide for citizen leaders and teachers--must-know information to help ensure that the democracy will last another century.

Democracy in Latin America

Democracy in Latin America PDF Author: Ignacio Walker
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 026809666X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
In 2009, Ignacio Walker—scholar, politician, and one of Latin America’s leading public intellectuals—published La Democracia en América Latina. Now available in English, with a new prologue, and significantly revised and updated for an English-speaking audience, Democracy in Latin America: Between Hope and Despair contributes to the necessary and urgent task of exploring both the possibilities and difficulties of establishing a stable democracy in Latin America. Walker argues that, throughout the past century, Latin American history has been marked by the search for responses or alternatives to the crisis of oligarchic rule and the struggle to replace the oligarchic order with a democratic one. After reviewing some of the principal theories of democracy based on an analysis of the interactions of political, economic, and social factors, Walker maintains that it is primarily the actors, institutions, and public policies—not structural determinants—that create progress or regression in Latin American democracy.

Democratic Evaluation and Democracy

Democratic Evaluation and Democracy PDF Author: Donna Podems
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1681237903
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Democratic evaluation brings a way of thinking about evaluation’s role in society and in particular, its role in strengthening social justice. Yet the reality of applying it, and what happens when it is applied particularly outside the West, is unclear. Set in South Africa, a newly formed democracy in Southern Africa, the book affords an in-depth journey that immerses a reader into the realities of evaluation and its relation to democracy. The book starts with the broader introductory chapters that set the scene for more detailed ones which bring thorough insights into national government, local government, and civil societies’ experience of evaluation, democratic evaluation and their understanding of how it contributes to strengthening democracy (or not). A teaching case, the book concludes by providing guiding questions that encourage reflection, discussion and learning that ultimately aims to inform practice and theory.

Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy

Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy PDF Author: S.M. Amadae
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226016544
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Offering a fascinating biography of a foundational theory, Amadae reveals not only how the ideological battles of the Cold War shaped ideas but also how those ideas may today be undermining the very notion of individual liberty they were created to defend.