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Author: Anna A. Amirkhanyan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351379267
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
Citizen Participation in the Age of Contracting is based on a simple premise: in democracies, power originates with citizens. While citizen participation in government remains a central tenet of democracy, public service delivery structures are considerably more complex today than they were fifty years ago. Today, governments contract with private organizations to deliver a wide array of services. Yet, we know very little about how citizens influence government decisions and policies in the "hollow state." Based on nearly 100 interviews with public and private managers, our findings about the state of citizen participation in contract governance are somewhat disheartening. Public and private organizations engaged citizens in a number of ways. However, most of their efforts failed to shift the power structure in communities and did not give citizens a chance to fundamentally shape local priorities and programs. Instead, elected officials and professional staff largely maintained control over significant policy and administrative decisions. Widespread, but narrow in their forms and impact, the participation practices we uncovered did not live up to the ideals of democracy and self-governance. Citizen Participation in the Age of Contracting is suitable for those who study public administration, as well as in other closely related fields such as nonprofit management and organizational behavior.
Author: Anna A. Amirkhanyan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351379267
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Get Book Here
Book Description
Citizen Participation in the Age of Contracting is based on a simple premise: in democracies, power originates with citizens. While citizen participation in government remains a central tenet of democracy, public service delivery structures are considerably more complex today than they were fifty years ago. Today, governments contract with private organizations to deliver a wide array of services. Yet, we know very little about how citizens influence government decisions and policies in the "hollow state." Based on nearly 100 interviews with public and private managers, our findings about the state of citizen participation in contract governance are somewhat disheartening. Public and private organizations engaged citizens in a number of ways. However, most of their efforts failed to shift the power structure in communities and did not give citizens a chance to fundamentally shape local priorities and programs. Instead, elected officials and professional staff largely maintained control over significant policy and administrative decisions. Widespread, but narrow in their forms and impact, the participation practices we uncovered did not live up to the ideals of democracy and self-governance. Citizen Participation in the Age of Contracting is suitable for those who study public administration, as well as in other closely related fields such as nonprofit management and organizational behavior.
Author: Sidney Verba
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226852962
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 452
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Book Description
Participation in America represents the largest study ever conducted of the ways in which citizens participate in American political life. Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie addresses the question of who participates in the American democratic process, how, and with what effects. They distinguish four kinds of political participation: voting, campaigning, communal activity, and interaction with a public official to achieve a personal goal. Using a national sample survey and interviews with leaders in 64 communities, the authors investigate the correlation between socioeconomic status and political participation. Recipient of the Kammerer Award (1972), Participation in America provides fundamental information about the nature of American democracy.
Author: Russell J. Dalton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191053325
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
The dilemma of democracy arises from two contrasting trends. More people in the established democracies are participating in civil society activity, contacting government officials, protesting, and using online activism and other creative forms of participation. At the same time, the importance of social status as an influence on political activity is increasing. The democratic principle of the equality of voice is eroding. The politically rich are getting richer-and the politically needy have less voice. This book assembles an unprecedented set of international public opinion surveys to identify the individual, institutional, and political factors that produce these trends. New forms of activity place greater demands on participants, raising the importance of social status skills and resources. Civil society activity further widens the participation gap. New norms of citizenship shift how people participate. And generational change and new online forms of activism accentuate this process. Effective and representative government requires a participatory citizenry and equal voice, and participation trends are undermining these outcomes. The Participation Gap both documents the growing participation gap in contemporary democracies and suggests ways that we can better achieve their theoretical ideal of a participatory citizenry and equal voice.
Author: Stephen Macedo
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815797869
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Voter turnout was unusually high in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. At first glance, that level of participation—largely spurred by war in Iraq and a burgeoning culture war at home—might look like vindication of democracy. If the recent past is any indication, however, too many Americans will soon return to apathy and inactivity. Clearly, all is not well in our civic life. Citizens are participating in public affairs too infrequently, too unequally, and in too few venues to develop and sustain a robust democracy. This important new book explores the problem of America's decreasing involvement in its own affairs. D emocracy at Risk reveals the dangers of civic disengagement for the future of representative democracy. The authors, all eminent scholars, undertake three main tasks: documenting recent trends in civic engagement, exploring the influence that the design of political institutions and public policies have had on those trends, and recommending steps that will increase the amount and quality of civic engagement in America. The authors focus their attention on three key areas: the electoral process, including elections and the way people get involved; the impact of location, including demographic shifts and changing development patterns; and the critical role of nonprofit organizations and voluntary associations, including the philanthropy that help keep them going. This important project, initially sponsored by the American Political Science Association, tests the proposition that social science has useful insights on the state of our democratic life. Most importantly, it charts a course for reinvigorating civic participation in the world's oldest democracy. The authors: Stephen Macedo (Princeton University), Yvette Alex-Assensoh (Indiana University), Jeffrey M. Berry (Tufts), Michael Brintnall (American Political Science Association), David E. Campbell (Notre Dame), Luis Ricardo Fraga (Stanford), Archon Fung (Harvard), William
Author: Nancy C. Roberts
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317458818
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 521
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Book Description
Citizen involvement is considered the cornerstone of democratic theory and practice. Citizens today have the knowledge and ability to participate more fully in the political, technical, and administrative decisions that affect them. On the other hand, direct citizen participation is often viewed with skepticism, even wariness. Many argue that citizens do not have the time, preparation, or interest to be directly involved in public affairs, and suggest instead that representative democracy, or indirect citizen participation, is the most effective form of government. Some of the very best writings on this key topic - which is at the root of the entire "reinventing government" movement - can be found in the journals that ASPA publishes or sponsors. In this collection Nancy Roberts has brought together the emerging classics on the ongoing debate over citizen involvement. Her detailed introductory essay and section openers frame the key issues, provide historical context, and fill in any gaps not directly covered by the articles. More than just an anthology, "The Age of Direct Citizen Participation" provides a unique and useful framework for understanding this important subject. It is an ideal resource for any Public Administration course involving citizen engagement and performance management.
Author: K. Bullock
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137269332
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 365
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Book Description
Analysing the historical circumstances and theoretical sources that have generated ideas about citizen and community participation in crime control, this book examines the various ideals, outcomes and effects that citizen participation has been held to stimulate and how these have been transformed, renegotiated and reinvigorated over time.
Author: Vera Schatten Coelho
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1848139152
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214
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Book Description
Mobilizing for Democracy is an in-depth study into how ordinary citizens and their organizations mobilize to deepen democracy. Featuring a collection of new empirical case studies from Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, this important new book illustrates how forms of political mobilization, such as protests, social participation, activism, litigation and lobbying, engage with the formal institutions of representative democracy in ways that are core to the development of democratic politics. No other volume has brought together examples from such a broad Southern spectrum and covering such a diversity of actors: rural and urban dwellers, transnational activists, religious groups, politicians and social leaders. The cases illuminate the crucial contribution that citizen mobilization makes to democratization and the building of state institutions, and reflect the uneasy relationship between citizens and the institutions that are designed to foster their political participation.
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264725903
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 198
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Book Description
Public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems ranging from climate change to infrastructure investment decisions. They convene groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society for at least one full day – and often much longer – to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations that consider the complexities and compromises required for solving multifaceted public issues.
Author: Pascal Lupien
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438469179
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190
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Book Description
Examines why some democratic innovations succeed while others fail, using Venezuela, Ecuador, and Chile as case studies. Citizens Power in Latin America takes the reader into the heart of communities where average citizens are attempting to build a new democratic model to improve their socioeconomic conditions and to have a voice in decisions that affect their lives. Based on groundbreaking fieldwork conducted in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Chile, Pascal Lupien contrasts two models of participatory design that have emerged in Latin America and identifies the factors that enhance or diminish the capacity of these mechanisms to produce positive outcomes. He draws on lived experiences of citizen participants to reveal the potential and the dangers of participatory democracy. Why do some democratic innovations appear to succeed while others fail? To what extent do these institutions really empower citizens, and in what ways can they be used by governments to control participation? What lessons can be learned from these experiments? Given the growing dissatisfaction with existing democratic systems across the world, this book will be of interest to people seeking innovative ways of deepening democracy.
Author: Mary L. Walsh
Publisher: International City/County Management Association(ICMA)
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
