Democracy Without Borders? assesses the worldwide prospects of liberal democracy. In an era of globalization and in an intellectual climate in which the idea of national sovereignty is under assault, Plattner identifies the essential features of modern liberal democracy and offers guidance about what is required to sustain it. An investigation of the complex and tension-filled relationship between liberalism and majority rule is at the heart of this important book.
This book explores the history, current relevance, and future implementation of the monumental idea of an elected global parliament. The second edition brings the book up to date and incorporates extensive revisions and additions.
Democracy Without Borders? assesses the worldwide prospects of liberal democracy. In an era of globalization and in an intellectual climate in which the idea of national sovereignty is under assault, Plattner identifies the essential features of modern liberal democracy and offers guidance about what is required to sustain it. This examination comes at a critical moment. After three decades of global advance, liberal democracy today is being challenged from many quarters. Among the reasons why its future looks cloudy is the popular election of candidates hostile to liberalism_in Palestine, Russia, Venezuela, and elsewhere. An investigation of the complex and tension-filled relationship between liberalism and majority rule is at the heart of this essential book. PlattnerOs contention is that liberalism needs democracy and that liberal democracy needs the nation-state. He argues that transnational bodies like the European Union cannot overcome their 'democratic deficit.' Hence he recommends an approach that will enable the United States to promote international cooperation without sacrificing the fundamental elements of national sovereignty or American democracy.
The creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly as an initial step towards a world parliament is a key goal of Democracy Without Borders. This study examines the proposal and presents official recommendations
Can Europe survive after abandoning the national loyalties--and religious traditions--that provided meaning? And what will happen to the United States as it goes down a similar path? The eminent French political philosopher Pierre Manent addresses these questions in his brilliant meditation on Europe's experiment in maximizing individual and social rights. By seeking to escape from the "national form," he shows, the European Union has weakened the very institutions that made possible liberty and self-government in the first place. Worse still, the "spiritual vacuity" that characterizes today's secular Europe--and, increasingly, the United States--is ultimately untenable.
A penetrating look into the unrecognized and unregulated links between autocratic regimes in Central Asia and centers of power and wealth throughout the West Weak, corrupt, and politically unstable, the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are dismissed as isolated and irrelevant to the outside world. But are they? This hard-hitting book argues that Central Asia is in reality a globalization leader with extensive involvement in economics, politics and security dynamics beyond its borders. Yet Central Asia’s international activities are mostly hidden from view, with disturbing implications for world security. Based on years of research and involvement in the region, Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw reveal how business networks, elite bank accounts, overseas courts, third-party brokers, and Western lawyers connect Central Asia’s supposedly isolated leaders with global power centers. The authors also uncover widespread Western participation in money laundering, bribery, foreign lobbying by autocratic governments, and the exploiting of legal loopholes within Central Asia. Riveting and important, this book exposes the global connections of a troubled region that must no longer be ignored.
This book carves out a new area of democratisation studies by analysing the transnational dimension and the role of non state actors across three different geographical regions. Chapters utilise empirical data from Europe, Africa and Latin America.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was established in 1945 with twin aims: to rebuild various institutions of the world destroyed by war, and to promote international understanding and peaceful cooperation among nations. Based on empirical and historical research and with a particular focus on history teaching, international understanding and peace, UNESCO Without Borders offers a new research trajectory for understanding the roles played by UNESCO and other international organizations, as well as the effects of globalization on education. With fifteen chapters by authors from cross-disciplinary and diverse geographical areas, this book assesses the global implications and results of UNESCO’s educational policies and practices. It explores how UNESCO-approved guidelines of textbook revisions and peace initiatives were implemented in member-states, illustrating the existence of both national confrontations with the new worldview promoted by UNESCO, as well as the constraints of international cooperation. This book provides an insightful analysis of UNESCO’s past challenges and also indicates promising future research directions in support of international understanding for peace and cooperation. As such, it will be of key interest to researchers, postgraduate students, academics in the fields of international and comparative education, education politics and policies, and to those interested in the historical study of international organizations and their global impact. The book will also appeal to practitioners, especially those who conduct research on or work in post-conflict societies.
A passionate defense of the humanities from one of today's foremost public intellectuals In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad. We increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable, productive, and empathetic individuals. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world. In a new preface, Nussbaum explores the current state of humanistic education globally and shows why the crisis of the humanities has far from abated. Translated into over twenty languages, Not for Profit draws on the stories of troubling—and hopeful—global educational developments. Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.
