Scandal and Democracy

Scandal and Democracy PDF Author: Mary E. McCoy
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501731068
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Successful transitions to enduring democracy are both difficult and rare. In Scandal and Democracy, Mary E. McCoy explores how newly democratizing nations can avoid reverting to authoritarian solutions in response to the daunting problems brought about by sudden change. The troubled transitions that have derailed democratization in nations worldwide make this problem a major concern for scholars and citizens alike. This study of Indonesia's transition from authoritarian rule sheds light on the fragility not just of democratic transitions but of democracy itself and finds that democratization's durability depends, to a surprising extent, on the role of the media, particularly its airing of political scandal and intraelite conflict. More broadly, Scandal and Democracy examines how the media's use of new freedoms can help ward off a slide into pseudodemocracy or a return to authoritarian rule. As Indonesia marks the twentieth anniversary of its democratic revolution of 1998, it remains among the world's most resilient new democracies and one of the few successful democratic transitions in the Muslim world. McCoy explains the media's central role in this change and corroborates that finding with comparative cases from Mexico, Tunisia, and South Korea, offering counterintuitive insights that help make sense of the success and failure of recent transitions to democracy.

Scandal and Democracy

Scandal and Democracy PDF Author: Mary E. McCoy
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501731068
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Successful transitions to enduring democracy are both difficult and rare. In Scandal and Democracy, Mary E. McCoy explores how newly democratizing nations can avoid reverting to authoritarian solutions in response to the daunting problems brought about by sudden change. The troubled transitions that have derailed democratization in nations worldwide make this problem a major concern for scholars and citizens alike. This study of Indonesia's transition from authoritarian rule sheds light on the fragility not just of democratic transitions but of democracy itself and finds that democratization's durability depends, to a surprising extent, on the role of the media, particularly its airing of political scandal and intraelite conflict. More broadly, Scandal and Democracy examines how the media's use of new freedoms can help ward off a slide into pseudodemocracy or a return to authoritarian rule. As Indonesia marks the twentieth anniversary of its democratic revolution of 1998, it remains among the world's most resilient new democracies and one of the few successful democratic transitions in the Muslim world. McCoy explains the media's central role in this change and corroborates that finding with comparative cases from Mexico, Tunisia, and South Korea, offering counterintuitive insights that help make sense of the success and failure of recent transitions to democracy.

Scandal and Civility

Scandal and Civility PDF Author: Marcus Daniel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199721440
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
A new breed of journalists came to the fore in post-revolutionary America--fiercely partisan, highly ideological, and possessed of a bold sense of vocation and purpose as they entered the fray of political debate. Often condemned by latter-day historians and widely seen in their own time as a threat to public and personal civility, these colorful figures emerge in this provocative new book as the era's most important agents of political democracy. Through incisive portraits of the most influential journalists of the 1790s--William Cobbett, Benjamin Franklin Bache, Philip Freneau, Noah Webster, John Fenno, and William Duane--Scandal and Civility moves beyond the usual cast of "revolutionary brothers" and "founding fathers" to offer a fresh perspective on a seemingly familiar story. Marcus Daniel demonstrates how partisan journalists, both Federalist and Democratic-Republican, were instrumental in igniting and expanding vital debates over the character of political leaders, the nature of representative government, and, ultimately, the role of the free press itself. Their rejection of civility and self-restraint--not even icons like George Washington were spared their satirical skewerings--earned these men the label "peddlers of scurrility." Yet, as Daniel shows, by breaking with earlier conceptions of "impartial" journalism, they challenged the elite dominance of political discourse and helped fuel the enormous political creativity of the early republic. Daniel's nuanced and penetrating narrative captures this key period of American history in all its contentious complexity. And in today's climate, when many decry media "excesses" and the relentlessly partisan and personal character of political debate, his book is a timely reminder that discord and difference were essential to the very creation of our political culture.

The Myth of Digital Democracy

The Myth of Digital Democracy PDF Author: Matthew Hindman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691138680
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Matthew Hindman reveals here that, contrary to popular belief, the Internet has done little to broaden political discourse in the United States, but rather that it empowers a small set of elites - some new, but most familiar.

The American Political Scandal

The American Political Scandal PDF Author: David R. Dewberry
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442242922
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
In this holistic examination of political scandal in the United States, David Dewberry argues convincingly that such scandals follow a consistent narrative centered largely on media coverage and politician performance rather than the actual corruption or ethics violation committed. In making this argument, he also provides an analytical framework for understanding the patterns underlying scandals regardless of their unique political contexts. Dewberry dissects four major examples—Teapot Dome, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Clinton/Lewinsky—and explores the roles of various constituencies involved in creating, reacting to, and mediating the scandal. What is the true role of journalism within the context of scandal? What persuasive techniques do politicians employ to develop and perpetuate scandals? What motives and values bring scandals to a close? In addition to the core cases, Dewberry incorporates briefer examples from contemporary and ongoing controversies including Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal, money and sex in Congress, how cover-ups have gone digital, and Chris Christie’s Bridgegate. The result is a fascinating and thoughtful look at the relationships among political discourse, free speech, and democracy.

The Scandal of Reason

The Scandal of Reason PDF Author: Albena Azmanova
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231527284
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Theories of justice are haunted by a paradox: the more ambitious the theory of justice, the less applicable and useful the model is to political practice; yet the more politically realistic the theory, the weaker its moral ambition, rendering it unsound and equally useless. Brokering a resolution to this "judgment paradox," Albena Azmanova advances a "critical consensus model" of judgment that serves the normative ideals of a just society without the help of ideal theory. Tracing the evolution of two major traditions in political philosophy—critical theory and philosophical liberalism—and the way they confront the judgment paradox, Azmanova critiques prevailing models of deliberative democracy and their preference for ideal theory over political applicability. Instead, she replaces the reliance on normative models of democracy with an account of the dynamics of reasoned judgment produced in democratic practices of open dialogues. Combining Hannah Arendt's study of judgment with Pierre Bourdieu's social critique of power relations, and incorporating elements of political epistemology from Kant, Wittgenstein, H. L. A. Hart, Max Weber, and American philosophical pragmatism, Azmanova centers her inquiry on the way participants in moral conflicts attribute meaning to their grievances of injustice. She then demonstrates the emancipatory potential of the model of critical deliberative judgment she forges and its capacity to guide policy making. This model's critical force yields from its capacity to disclose the common structural sources of injustice behind conflicting claims to justice. Moving beyond the conflict between universalist and pluralist positions, Azmanova grounds the question of "what is justice?" in the empirical reality of "who suffers?" in order to discern attainable possibilities for a less unjust world.

Scandal, Sensation and Social Democracy

Scandal, Sensation and Social Democracy PDF Author: Alex Hall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521085268
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book focuses on the beleagured position of the SPD in Imperial Germany after the fall of Bismarck and underlines the enormous difficulties the party faced in establishing a right to political dissent. Dr Hall describes the development of the party press and analyses the relationship between SPD journalists and officialdom. He looks at Wilhelmine society and politics through the magnifying glass of the socialist press and shows how the law courts and the police were directed towards the suppression of free speech, as well as highlighting the important role of non-democratic forces in the state, such as the military. This use of the law as an instrument of repression, coupled with official discrimination against the working class, and the plethora of political malpractices, together with evidence of the personal failings and weaknesses of leading establishment figures, were all used by the SPD press as propaganda against the establishment and as a barometer of the impending collapse of society. The book will appeal to political scientists, especially those interested in the development of socialist thought, as well as to historians of Imperial Germany.

Dangerous Democracy?

Dangerous Democracy? PDF Author: Larry Sabato
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742510425
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Direct democracy is growing in the form of statewide ballot initiatives. This work assesses the health of the intitiative process through the insights of initiative scholars, journalists, and political consultants across America.

Media Power in Indonesia

Media Power in Indonesia PDF Author: Ross Tapsell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1786600374
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Indonesia is undergoing a process of rapid change, with an affluent middle class due to hit 141 million people by 2020. While official statistics suggest that internet penetration is low, over 70 million Indonesians have a Facebook account, the fourth highest group in the world. Jakarta is the Twitter capital of the world with more tweets per minute than any other city around the globe. In the past ten years digitalisation of media content has enabled extensive concentration and conglomeration of the industry, and media owners are wealthier and more politically powerful than ever before. Digital media is a prominent place of contestation between large, powerful oligarchs, and citizens looking to bring about rapid and meaningful change. This book examines how the political agencies of both oligarchs and ‘netizens’ are enhanced by digitalisation, and how an increasingly divergent society is being formed. In doing so, this book enters this debate about the transformations of society and power in the digital age.

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy PDF Author: Greg Palast
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110121323X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
"Palast is astonishing, he gets the real evidence no one else has the guts to dig up." Vincent Bugliosi, author of None Dare Call it Treason and Helter Skelter Award-winning investigative journalist Greg Palast digs deep to unearth the ugly facts that few reporters working anywhere in the world today have the courage or ability to cover. From East Timor to Waco, he has exposed some of the most egregious cases of political corruption, corporate fraud, and financial manipulation in the US and abroad. His uncanny investigative skills as well as his no-holds-barred style have made him an anathema among magnates on four continents and a living legend among his colleagues and his devoted readership. This exciting collection, now revised and updated, brings together some of Palast's most powerful writing of the past decade. Included here are his celebrated Washington Post exposé on Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris's stealing of the presidential election in Florida, and recent stories on George W. Bush's payoffs to corporate cronies, the payola behind Hillary Clinton, and the faux energy crisis. Also included in this volume are new and previously unpublished material, television transcripts, photographs, and letters.

The Confidence Trap

The Confidence Trap PDF Author: David Runciman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Why democracies believe they can survive any crisis—and why that belief is so dangerous Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989. Throughout, the book pays close attention to the politicians and thinkers who grappled with these crises: from Woodrow Wilson, Nehru, and Adenauer to Fukuyama and Obama. In The Confidence Trap, David Runciman shows that democracies are good at recovering from emergencies but bad at avoiding them. The lesson democracies tend to learn from their mistakes is that they can survive them—and that no crisis is as bad as it seems. Breeding complacency rather than wisdom, crises lead to the dangerous belief that democracies can muddle through anything—a confidence trap that may lead to a crisis that is just too big to escape, if it hasn't already. The most serious challenges confronting democracy today are debt, the war on terror, the rise of China, and climate change. If democracy is to survive them, it must figure out a way to break the confidence trap.