The Open Society Paradox
Author: Dennis Bailey
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 241
ISBN-13: 1574889168
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHow do we protect an open society from those who would use its freedom against us?
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The Paradox of Openness
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2014-11-13
Total Pages: 285
ISBN-13: 9004281193
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe ‘open society’ has become a watchword of liberal democracy and the market system in the modern globalized world. Openness stands for individual opportunity and collective reason, as well as bottom-up empowerment and top-down transparency. It has become a cherished value, despite its vagueness and the connotation of vulnerability that surrounds it. Scandinavia has long considered itself a model of openness, citing traditions of freedom of information and inclusive policy making. This collection of essays traces the conceptual origins, development, and diverse challenges of openness in the Nordic countries and Austria. It examines some of the many paradoxes that openness encounters and the tensions it arouses when it addresses such divergent ends as democratic deliberation and market transactions, freedom of speech and sensitive information, compliant decision making and political and administrative transparency, and consensual procedures and the toleration of dissent. Contributors are: Ainur Elmgren, Tero Erkkilä, Norbert Götz, Ann-Cathrine Jungar, Johannes Kananen, Lotta Lounasmeri, Carl Marklund, Peter Parycek, Johanna Rainio-Niemi, Judith Schossböck, Ylva Waldemarson, and Tuomas Ylä-Anttila.
The Paradox of Scale
Author: Cristina M. Balboa
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2018-11-13
Total Pages: 254
ISBN-13: 0262535858
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn examination of why NGOs often experience difficulty creating lasting change, with case studies of transnational conservation organizations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Why do nongovernmental organizations face difficulty creating lasting change? How can they be more effective? In this book, Cristina Balboa examines NGO authority, capacity, and accountability to propose that a “paradox of scale” is a primary barrier to NGO effectiveness. This paradox—when what gives an NGO authority on one scale also weakens its authority on another scale—helps explain how NGOs can be seen as an authority on particular causes on a global scale, but then fail to effect change at the local level. Drawing on case studies of transnational conservation organizations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, The Paradox of Scale explores how NGOs build, maintain, and lose authority over time. Balboa sets a new research agenda for the study of governance, offering practical concepts and analysis to help NGO practitioners. She introduces the concept of authority as a form of legitimated power, explaining why it is necessary for NGOs to build authority at multiple scales when they create, implement, or enforce rules. Examining the experiences of Conservation International in Papua New Guinea, International Marinelife Alliance in the Philippines, and the Community Conservation Network in Palau, Balboa explains how a paradox of scale can develop even for those NGOs that seem powerful and effective. Interdisciplinary in its approach, The Paradox of Scale offers guidance for interpreting the actions and pressures accompanying work with NGOs, showing why even the most authoritative NGOs often struggle to make a lasting impact.
Trust Within Reason
Author: Martin Hollis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1998-03-05
Total Pages: 184
ISBN-13: 9780521586818
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDoes trust grow fragile when people are too rational or when they are not rational enough? Both thoughts are plausible. Which is right depends on how we define "reason." Martin Hollis' elegant and distinctive study argues for an interpretation of "reason" as putting the common good before one's own. This offers a universal reciprocity to people who then choose what reason shall mean for them.
Conjectures and Refutations
Author: Karl Raimund Popper
Publisher: Psychology Press
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 614
ISBN-13: 9780415285940
DOWNLOAD EBOOKConjectures and Refutations is one of Karl Popper's most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insight into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history. It provides one of the clearest and most accessible statements of the fundamental idea that guided his work: not only our knowledge, but our aims and our standards, grow through an unending process of trial and error.
The Open Society Paradox
Author: Dennis Bailey
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
Published: 2011-07
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 1612343112
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHow do we ensure security and, at the same time, safeguard civil liberties? The Open Society Paradox challenges the conventional wisdom of those on both sides of the debate--leaders who want unlimited authority and advocates who would sacrifice security for individual privacy protection. It offers a provocative alternative, suggesting that while the very openness of American society has left the United States vulnerable to today's threats, only more of this quality will make the country safer and enhance its citizens' freedom and mobility. Uniquely qualified to address these issues, Dennis Bailey argues that the solution is not to create a police state that restricts liberties but, paradoxically, to embrace greater openness. Through new technologies that engender transparency, including secure information, biometrics, surveillance, facial recognition, and data mining, society can remove the anonymity of the ill-intentioned while revitalizing the notions of trust and accountability and enhancing freedom for most Americans. He explores the impact of greater transparency on our lives, our relationships, and our liberties. The Open Society Paradox is a brave exploration of how to realign our traditional assumptions about privacy with a twenty-first-century concept of an open society.
The Paradox of Choice
Author: Barry Schwartz
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2009-10-13
Total Pages: 308
ISBN-13: 0061748994
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
Open Society and Its Enemies. Volume 2
Author: Karl Raimund Popper
Publisher:
Published: 1966
Total Pages: 432
ISBN-13: 9780691071275
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPopper was born in 1902 to a Viennese family of Jewish origin. He taught in Austria until 1937, when he emigrated to New Zealand in anticipation of the Nazi annexation of Austria the following year, and he settled in England in 1949. Before the annexation, Popper had written mainly about the philosophy of science, but from 1938 until the end of the Second World War he focused his energies on political philosophy, seeking to diagnose the intellectual origins of German and Soviet totalitarianism. The Open Society and Its Enemies was the result. In the book, Popper condemned Plato, Marx, and Hegel as "holists" and "historicists"--a holist, according to Popper, believes that individuals are formed entirely by their social groups; historicists believe that social groups evolve according to internal principles that it is the intellectual's task to uncover. Popper, by contrast, held that social affairs are unpredictable, and argued vehemently against social engineering. He also sought to shift the focus of political philosophy away from questions about who ought to rule toward questions about how to minimize the damage done by the powerful. The book was an immediate sensation, and--though it has long been criticized for its portrayals of Plato, Marx, and Hegel--it has remained a landmark on the left and right alike for its defense of freedom and the spirit of critical inquiry.
Democracies Divided
Author: Thomas Carothers
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 2019-09-24
Total Pages: 321
ISBN-13: 081573722X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“A must-read for anyone concerned about the fate of contemporary democracies.”—Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Why divisions have deepened and what can be done to heal them As one part of the global democratic recession, severe political polarization is increasingly afflicting old and new democracies alike, producing the erosion of democratic norms and rising societal anger. This volume is the first book-length comparative analysis of this troubling global phenomenon, offering in-depth case studies of countries as wide-ranging and important as Brazil, India, Kenya, Poland, Turkey, and the United States. The case study authors are a diverse group of country and regional experts, each with deep local knowledge and experience. Democracies Divided identifies and examines the fissures that are dividing societies and the factors bringing polarization to a boil. In nearly every case under study, political entrepreneurs have exploited and exacerbated long-simmering divisions for their own purposes—in the process undermining the prospects for democratic consensus and productive governance. But this book is not simply a diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Each case study discusses actions that concerned citizens and organizations are taking to counter polarizing forces, whether through reforms to political parties, institutions, or the media. The book’s editors distill from the case studies a range of possible ways for restoring consensus and defeating polarization in the world’s democracies. Timely, rigorous, and accessible, this book is of compelling interest to civic activists, political actors, scholars, and ordinary citizens in societies beset by increasingly rancorous partisanship.
Closed Education in the Open Society
Author: Chen Yehezkely
Publisher: Rodopi
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 211
ISBN-13: 9401208735
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPreliminary Material -- Giving Our Children the Benefit of the Doubt -- Back to Basics -- The Quest for the Good Society -- The Quest for the Good Education -- Closed Education in the Open Society -- The Kibbutz: A Closed Open Society -- Between Kibbutz and Kibbutz Education -- Faith -- The Ethical Dimension -- The Critical Approach -- The Answer from Liberalism -- The Benefits of Doubt: All That We Truly Have -- Bibliography -- Name Index -- Subject Index.
