Vital Democracy

Vital Democracy PDF Author: Frank Hendriks
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019957278X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Vital Democracy outlines an innovative new theory of democracy in action.

Vital Democracy

Vital Democracy PDF Author: Frank Hendriks
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019957278X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Vital Democracy outlines an innovative new theory of democracy in action.

The Vital Center

The Vital Center PDF Author: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Publisher: Transaction Large Print
ISBN: 9781412855631
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Vital Center is an eloquent and incisive defense of liberal democracy against its rivals to the left and to the right, communism and fascism. Originally published in 1949, it shows how the failures of free society led to the disenchantment of the masses with democracy, and sharpened the appeal of totalitarian solutions. The book calls for a radical reconstruction of the democratic polity based on a realistic understanding of human limitations and frailties.

Rich Media, Poor Democracy

Rich Media, Poor Democracy PDF Author: Robert W. McChesney
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 1620970708
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
An updated edition of the “penetrating study” examining how the current state of mass media puts our democracy at risk (Noam Chomsky). What happens when a few conglomerates dominate all major aspects of mass media, from newspapers and magazines to radio and broadcast television? After all the hype about the democratizing power of the internet, is this new technology living up to its promise? Since the publication of this prescient work, which won Harvard’s Goldsmith Book Prize and the Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award, the concentration of media power and the resultant “hypercommercialization of media” has only intensified. Robert McChesney lays out his vision for what a truly democratic society might look like, offering compelling suggestions for how the media can be reformed as part of a broader program of democratic renewal. Rich Media, Poor Democracy remains as vital and insightful as ever and continues to serve as an important resource for researchers, students, and anyone who has a stake in the transformation of our digital commons. This new edition includes a major new preface by McChesney, where he offers both a history of the transformation in media since the book first appeared; a sweeping account of the organized efforts to reform the media system; and the ongoing threats to our democracy as journalism has continued its sharp decline. “Those who want to know about the relationship of media and democracy must read this book.” —Neil Postman “If Thomas Paine were around, he would have written this book.” —Bill Moyers

The Character of American Democracy

The Character of American Democracy PDF Author: Jill Long Thompson
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253050448
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
This illuminating examination of democratic ethics is “a resource for Americans who are seeking ways to secure our democracy and our future as a nation” (Congressman John Lewis). Ethical leadership, steeped in integrity and fairness, matters. The future of our nation and our world depends upon the quality of America’s character. In this absorbing look at our contemporary society and government, former Indiana congresswoman Jill Long Thompson persuasively argues that we all have a meaningful role to play in shaping America’s character and future. The citizenry, as well as their elected officials, are responsible for protecting fairness of participation and integrity in elections, as well as in the adoption and execution of laws. In this troubling time when the public is losing trust and confidence in our government, Jill Long Thompson shows us a bipartisan way forward.

You Call this Democracy?

You Call this Democracy? PDF Author: Elizabeth Rusch
Publisher: Clarion Books
ISBN: 0358176921
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
America is the greatest democracy in the world . . . isn't it? Author Elizabeth Rusch examines some of the more problematic aspects of our government but, more importantly, offers ways for young people to fix them. The political landscape has never been so tumultuous: issues with the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and a lack of representation in the polls and in our leadership have led to Americans of all ages asking, How did we get here? The power to change lies with the citizens of this great country--especially teens Rather than pointing fingers at people and political parties, You Call This Democracy? looks at flaws in the system--and offers a real way out of the mess we are in. Each chapter breaks down a different problem plaguing American democracy, exploring how it's undemocratic, offering possible solutions (with examples of real-life teens who have already started working toward them), and suggesting ways to effect change--starting NOW

Becoming Political

Becoming Political PDF Author: Christopher Skeaff
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022655550X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
In this pathbreaking work, Christopher Skeaff argues that a profoundly democratic conception of judgment is at the heart of Spinoza’s thought. Bridging Continental and Anglo-American scholarship, critical theory, and Spinoza studies, Becoming Political offers a historically sensitive, meticulous, and creative interpretation of Spinoza’s texts that reveals judgment as the communal element by which people generate power to resist domination and reconfigure the terms of their political association. If, for Spinoza, judging is the activity which makes a people powerful, it is because it enables them to contest the project of ruling and demonstrate the political possibility of being equally free to articulate the terms of their association. This proposition differs from a predominant contemporary line of argument that treats the people’s judgment as a vehicle of sovereignty—a means of defining and refining the common will. By recuperating in Spinoza’s thought a “vital republicanism,” Skeaff illuminates a line of political thinking that decouples democracy from the majoritarian aspiration to rule and aligns it instead with the project of becoming free and equal judges of common affairs. As such, this decoupling raises questions that ordinarily go unasked: what calls for political judgment, and who is to judge? In Spinoza’s vital republicanism, the political potential of life and law finds an affirmative relationship that signals the way toward a new constitutionalism and jurisprudence of the common.

What Universities Owe Democracy

What Universities Owe Democracy PDF Author: Ronald J. Daniels
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421442698
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Introduction -- American dreams : access, mobility, fairness -- Free minds : educating democratic citizens -- Hard facts : knowledge creation and checking power -- Purposeful pluralism : dialogue across difference on campus -- Conclusion.

Mending Democracy

Mending Democracy PDF Author: Carolyn M. Hendriks
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198843054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The fabric of contemporary democracy in many liberal Western societies is in tatters. Citizens are disconnected from their elected representatives, they are fractured and polarised in the public sphere, and alienated from increasingly complex systems of public policy. These disconnects - in the representative relationship, in the public sphere, and in the policy-making process - are weakening the very fabric of our democracies. This book develops the idea of democratic mending as a way of advancing a more connective and systemic approach to democratic repair. It is informed by three rich empirical cases of connectivity in practice, as well as cutting-edge debates in deliberative democracy.The empirical cases uncover empowering and transformative modes of citizen participation and civic engagement that are vital for democratic renewal. The actors in this book are not withdrawing, resisting or seeking autonomy from conventional institutions of representative democracy but actively experimenting with ways to improve and engage with them. Through their everyday practices of democratic mending they undertake crucial systemic repair work and strengthen the integrity of our democratic fabric in ways that are yet to be fully acknowledged by scholars and practitioners of democratic reform.

Vital Voices

Vital Voices PDF Author: Alyse Nelson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118184777
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
How women around the world are leading powerful change Women's progress is global progress. Where there is an increase in women's university enrollment rates, women's earnings, and maternal health, and a reduction in violence against women, we see more prosperous communities, better educated, healthier families, and the preservation of equal human rights. Yet globally, women remain the most consistently under-utilized resource. Vital Voices calls for and makes possible transformative leadership around the world. In Vital Voices, CEO Alyse Nelson shares the stories of remarkable, world-changing women, as well as the story of how Vital Voices was founded, crossing lines that typically divide. For 15 years, Vital Voices has brought together women who want to enable others to become change agents in their governments, advocates for social justice, and supporters of democracy. They equip women with management and business development skills to expand their enterprises and create jobs in their communities. Their voices, stories, and hard-earned lessons—shared here for the first time—are deeply authentic and truly vital. Features interviews and first-person accounts of global leaders, such as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, and Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize-winning Burmese pro-democracy leader, as well as business leaders Draws on the work of the Vital Voices, the organization founded by Hillary Clinton in 1997 as a government initiative that transformed into a leading non-profit, which enables a network of 10,000 emerging women leaders in politics, human rights, and economic development in 127 countries. These women have gone on to mentor and train more than 500,000 Focuses on the key elements of the Vital Voices five-step model of transformational leadership, including how to find a voice, lead with purpose, cross lines that divide, and more Through the firsthand accounts of trail-blazing leaders, Vital Voices introduces unforgettable, inspiring women who are shaping our world.

Democracy Incorporated

Democracy Incorporated PDF Author: Sheldon S. Wolin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178488
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. Now with a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges, Democracy Incorporated remains an essential work for understanding the state of democracy in America.