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Author: G. Bingham Powell
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2000-01-01
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780300080162
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis text explores elections as instruments of democracy. Focusing on elections in 20 democracies over the last 25 years, it examines the differences between two visions of democracy - the majoritarian vision and the proportional influence vision.
Author: Peter Natchez
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05
Total Pages: 431
ISBN-13: 1351513516
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen survey research, statistics, and electronic data processing were first introduced, they held out promise that a new level of political knowledge would be created. Applied to the study of voting behavior, survey research promised an understanding of the factors determining the outcome of an election, that political history could be based on rich and current data, and that we could begin to understand the role of elections in constitutional democracy. The truth as Peter B. Natchez shows, is that despite the opportunity provided by this revolution, voting studies have failed to make significant contributions to democratic theory or political history.The findings of voting studies have spread from the universities into the political system with a rather grim message. In its simplest form the message is this: the electorate does not measure up to the task thrust upon it by democracy. The studies conclude that voters choose candidates for reasons having little relevance to the success of the political system, and little relevance even to politics. Thus political science, in shifting from an optimistic focus on theory to a strong emphasis on empiricism, became a source of pessimism.One cannot study democracy or the democratic process without a point of view on democracy. The scientific method requires a point of view: science is not only a method for discovering reality, but for addressing well-structured questions. Natchez identifies goals for democracy, freedom and tolerance, and consciousness in decision making. Elections serve two functions; one, filling constitutional offices, and two, a symbolic function rooted in democratic experience that is more ambiguous, but no less vital as a part of regime analysis. A political science that connects these two aspects of voting will require an analysis of why voters vote the way they do to fill offices; but, more importantly, it will also require an understanding of the symbolic function of elections.
Author: Sabrina P. Ramet
Publisher: Central European University Press
Published: 2019-06-12
Total Pages: 492
ISBN-13: 9633863104
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAlternatives to Democracy in Twentieth-Century Europe examines the historical examples of Soviet Communism, Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and Spanish Anarchism, suggesting that, in spite of their differences, they had some key features in common, in particular their shared hostility to individualism, representative government, laissez faire capitalism, and the decadence they associated with modern culture. But rather than seeking to return to earlier ways of working these movements and regimes sought to design a new future – an alternative future – that would restore the nation to spiritual and political health. The Fascists, for their part, specifically promoted palingenesis, which is to say the spiritual rebirth of the nation. The book closes with a long epilogue, in which Ramet defends liberal democracy, highlighting its strengths and advantages. In this chapter, the author identifies five key choke points, which would-be authoritarians typically seek to control, subvert, or instrumentalize: electoral rules, the judiciary, the media, hate speech, and surveillance, and looks at the cases of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Jarosław Kaczyński’s Poland, and Donald Trump’s United States.
Author: Judith E. Smith
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 481
ISBN-13: 0231121717
DOWNLOAD EBOOK-- Elaine May, author of Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era.
Author: Jerry Tetalman
Publisher: Origin Press (CA)
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 280
ISBN-13: 9781579830175
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn One World Democracy, authors Jerry Tetalman and Byron Belitsos describe the only known long-term solution to the urgent global problems that threaten the survival of humankind: democratic world government and the rule of law at the global level—a federation of all nations. This book provides the definitive overview for our time of how humanity can replace the United Nations with a genuine world democracy. In this future world democracy, the executive branch will be strictly limited by a separation of powers—world courts, a global bill of rights, and a world legislature—all under a world constitution. One World Democracy is directed at today’s progressives who are ready to implement tomorrow’s solutions to the global crisis. This book teaches how to become part of the greatest political revolution in history.
Author: Molly Cochran
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010-07-22
Total Pages: 375
ISBN-13: 0521874564
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJohn Dewey (1859-1952) was a major figure of the American cultural and intellectual landscape in the first half of the twentieth century. The contributors to this Companion examine the wide range of Dewey's thought and provide a critical evaluation of his philosophy and its lasting influence.
Author: Peter deLeon
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 1997-08-21
Total Pages: 176
ISBN-13: 1438400780
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAs originally proposed by Harold Lasswell, the policy sciences were dedicated to democratic governance. But today they are far removed from the democratic process and do little to promote the American democratic system. This book examines how in the context of American history and the development of the policy sciences, a more democratic, participatory policy analysis could be conceptualized in theory and administered in practice. Peter deLeon argues that for the policy sciences to move toward democracy, they must accept a new analytic paradigm that draws heavily on critical thinking and the writing of post-positivism. To further that end, he presents a "minipopulist" procedure that will allow more citizen participation without hamstringing the processes of government.
Author: Lisa Wedeen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2009-08-01
Total Pages: 324
ISBN-13: 0226877922
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe government of Yemen, unified since 1990, remains largely incapable of controlling violence or providing goods and services to its population, but the regime continues to endure despite its fragility and peripheral location in the global political and economic order. Revealing what holds Yemen together in such tenuous circumstances, Peripheral Visions shows how citizens form national attachments even in the absence of strong state institutions. Lisa Wedeen, who spent a year and a half in Yemen observing and interviewing its residents, argues that national solidarity in such weak states tends to arise not from attachments to institutions but through both extraordinary events and the ordinary activities of everyday life. Yemenis, for example, regularly gather to chew qat, a leafy drug similar to caffeine, as they engage in wide-ranging and sometimes influential public discussions of even the most divisive political and social issues. These lively debates exemplify Wedeen’s contention that democratic, national, and pious solidarities work as ongoing, performative practices that enact and reproduce a citizenry’s shared points of reference. Ultimately, her skillful evocations of such practices shift attention away from a narrow focus on government institutions and electoral competition and toward the substantive experience of participatory politics.
Author: John Keane
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2009-06-01
Total Pages: 717
ISBN-13: 1847377602
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJohn Keane's The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: can we really be sure that democracy had its origins in ancient Greece? How did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling that a bad moon is rising over all the world's democracies? Do they indeed have a future? Or is perhaps democracy fated to melt away, along with our polar ice caps? The work of one of Britain's leading political writers, this is no mere antiquarian history. Stylishly written, this superb book confronts its readers with an entirely fresh and irreverent look at the past, present and future of democracy. It unearths the beginnings of such precious institutions and ideals as government by public assembly, votes for women, the secret ballot, trial by jury and press freedom. It tracks the changing, hotly disputed meanings of democracy and describes quite a few of the extraordinary characters, many of them long forgotten, who dedicated their lives to building or defending democracy. And it explains why democracy is still potentially the best form of government on earth -- and why democracies everywhere are sleepwalking their way into deep trouble.
Author: Jeffrey Stout
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 382
ISBN-13: 9780691102931
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAsking how the citizens of modern democracy can reason with one another, this book carves out a controversial position between those who view religious voices as an anathema to democracy and those who believe democratic society is a moral wasteland because such voices are not heard.
