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.
Every community wants to become a great place to live and work. The why is no mystery: We want to create a place our children and grandchildren will want to be. We also know the what: We need to attract investments, provide good jobs, and create lively downtowns where citizens will want to work, live, shop and play. What s usually missing is the how. In Building a Vibrant Community, Quint Studer addresses all three aspects, but mainly focuses on the last one. How can your community get from where it is now to where it wants to be?
Recent global security threats, economic instability, and political uncertainty have placed great scrutiny on the requirements for U.S. citizenship. The stipulation of literacy has long been one of these criteria. In Producing Good Citizens, Amy J. Wan examines the historic roots of this phenomenon, looking specifically to the period just before World War I, up until the Great Depression. During this time, the United States witnessed a similar anxiety over the influx of immigrants, economic uncertainty, and global political tensions. Early on, educators bore the brunt of literacy training, while also being charged with producing the right kind of citizens by imparting civic responsibility and a moral code for the workplace and society. Literacy quickly became the credential to gain legal, economic, and cultural status. In her study, Wan defines three distinct pedagogical spaces for literacy training during the 1910s and 1920s: Americanization and citizenship programs sponsored by the federal government, union-sponsored programs, and first year university writing programs. Wan also demonstrates how each literacy program had its own motivation: the federal government desired productive citizens, unions needed educated members to fight for labor reform, and university educators looked to aid social mobility. Citing numerous literacy theorists, Wan analyzes the correlation of reading and writing skills to larger currents within American society. She shows how early literacy training coincided with the demand for laborers during the rise of mass manufacturing, while also providing an avenue to economic opportunity for immigrants. This fostered a rhetorical link between citizenship, productivity, and patriotism. Wan supplements her analysis with an examination of citizen training books, labor newspapers, factory manuals, policy documents, public deliberations on citizenship and literacy, and other materials from the period to reveal the goal and rationale behind each program. Wan relates the enduring bond of literacy and citizenship to current times, by demonstrating the use of literacy to mitigate economic inequality, and its lasting value to a productivity-based society. Today, as in the past, educators continue to serve as an integral part of the literacy training and citizen-making process.
'We need effective citizen-lobbyists – not just likers, followers or even marchers – more than ever. I have no hesitation in lobbying you to read this book.' Bill Emmott, former editor in chief, the Economist Many democratic societies are experiencing a crisis of faith. Citizens are making clear their frustration with their supposedly representative governments, which instead seem driven by the interests of big business, powerful individuals and wealthy lobby groups. What can we do about it? How do we fix democracy and get our voices heard? The answer, argues Alberto Alemanno, is to become change-makers – citizen lobbyists. By using our skills and talents and mobilizing others, we can bring about social and political change. Whoever you are, you've got power, and this book will show you how to unleash it. From successfully challenging Facebook's use of private data to abolishing EU mobile phone roaming charges, Alberto highlights the stories of those who have lobbied for change, and shows how you can follow in their footsteps, whether you want to influence immigration policy, put pressure on big business or protect your local community.
This is a story of hope, but also of peril. It began when our nation’s polarized political class started conscripting everyday citizens into its culture war. From their commanding heights in political parties, media, academia, and government, these partisans have attacked one another for years, but increasingly they’ve convinced everyday Americans to join the fray. Why should we feel such animosity toward our fellow citizens, our neighbors, even our own kin? Because we’ve fallen for the false narrative, eagerly promoted by pundits on the Left and the Right, that citizens who happen to vote Democrat or Republican are enthusiastic supporters of Team Blue or Team Red. Aside from a minority of party activists and partisans, however, most voters are simply trying to choose the lesser of two evils. The real threat to our union isn’t Red vs. Blue America, it’s the quiet collusion within our nation’s political class to take away that most American of freedoms: our right to self-governance. Even as partisans work overtime to divide Americans against one another, they’ve erected a system under which we ordinary citizens don’t have a voice in the decisions that affect our lives. From foreign wars to how local libraries are run, authority no longer resides with We the People, but amongst unaccountable officials. The political class has stolen our birthright and set us at one another’s throats. This is the story of how that happened and what we can do about it. America stands at a precipice, but there’s still time to reclaim authority over our lives and communities.
"In this collection, the idea of republican democracy is put forward as a way of moving progressive politics beyond its present impasse. The core aim of republicanism is taken to be the sustenance of a strong and participative civil society as well as an active and democratic state. The challenge is to put both the state and the market in their place, so as to build a citizen society."--BOOK JACKET.
Why a dumbed-down curriculum is bad for our democracy: “A persuasive, scientifically sound case for an education revolution.” — Shelf Awareness In How to Educate a Citizen, E.D. Hirsch continues the conversation he began thirty years ago with his classic bestseller Cultural Literacy, urging America’s public schools, particularly at the elementary level, to educate our children more effectively to help heal and preserve the nation. Since the 1960s, our schools have been relying on “child-centered learning.” History, geography, science, civics, and other essential knowledge have been dumbed down by vacuous learning “techniques” and “values-based” curricula; indoctrinated by graduate schools of education, administrators and educators have believed they are teaching reading and critical thinking skills. Yet these cannot be taught in the absence of strong content, Hirsch argues. The consequence is a loss of shared knowledge that would enable us to work together, understand one another, and make coherent, informed decisions. A broken approach to school not only leaves our children underprepared and erodes the American dream but also loosens the bonds that hold the nation together. Drawing on early schoolmasters and educational reformers such as Noah Webster and Horace Mann, Hirsch charts the rise and fall of the American early education system and provides a blueprint for closing the national gap in knowledge, communications, and allegiance. Critical and compelling, How to Educate a Citizen galvanizes our schools to equip children with the power of shared knowledge. “Concerned citizens , teachers, and parents take note! We ignore this book at our peril.” —Joel Klein, former Chancellor of New York City Public Schools
"What kind of citizen is no ordinary education book. By drawing on accessible and engaging discussions around the goals of schooling, it is imminently readable by a broad public. Neither fluff nor polemic, the theory and practice described in the book are based in solid empirical research and come out of the most influential frameworks for citizenship and democratic education of the last several decades (the "Three Kinds of Citizens" framework that emerged from collaboration between the author and Dr. Joseph Kahne as well as consultations with thousands of school teachers and civic leaders.) - This framework has been used in 67 countries to help teachers and school reformers think about how to structure educational programs and how schools can strengthen democratic societies. - This book pulls together a decade of research on schools into one place giving the reader a comprehensive look at why schools should be at the forefront of public engagement and how we can make that happen"--
A comparative analysis of the nation-building projects in Turkey under both Ataturk and Erdogan, concentrating on the concept of the desired, undesired and tolerated citizen. This shows how resulting historical traumas, victimhood, insecurities, anxieties, and fears have had influenced both state and society throughout these different periods.
