Freedom and Time
Freedom and Time

Author: Jed Rubenfeld

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0300129424

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Should we try to “live in the present”? Such is the imperative of modernity, Jed Rubenfeld writes in this important and original work of political theory. Since Jefferson proclaimed that “the earth belongs to the living”—since Freud announced that mental health requires people to “get free of their past”—since Nietzsche declared that the happy man is the man who “leaps” into “the moment—modernity has directed its inhabitants to live in the present, as if there alone could they find happiness, authenticity, and above all freedom. But this imperative, Rubenfeld argues, rests on a profoundly inadequate, deforming picture of the relationship between freedom and time. Instead, Rubenfeld suggests, human freedom—human being itself—-necessarily extends into both past and future; self-government consists of giving our lives meaning and purpose over time. From this conception of self-government, Rubenfeld derives a new theory of constitutional law’s place in democracy. Democracy, he writes, is not a matter of governance by the present “will of the people” it is a matter of a nation’s laying down and living up to enduring political and legal commitments. Constitutionalism is not counter to democracy, as many believe, or a pre-condition of democracy; it is or should be democracy itself--over time. On this basis, Rubenfeld offers a new understanding of constitutional interpretation and of the fundamental right of privacy.

Legitimacy and History
Legitimacy and History

Author: Paul W. Kahn

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0300054998

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For Americans, legitimate government means self-government. In this brilliant and disturbing analysis, Paul W. Kahn shows that the American Constitution itself makes self-government impossible. Constitutional theory, he argues, has been a history of failed attempts to resolve this paradox.

The Future of Local Self-Government
The Future of Local Self-Government

Author: Tomas Bergström

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-01-12

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 3030560597

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This book presents new research results on the challenges of local politics in different European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and Switzerland, together with theoretical considerations on the further development and strengthening of local self-government. It focuses on analyses of the most recent developments in local democracy and administration.

The Future Once Happened Here
The Future Once Happened Here

Author: Frederick F. Siegel

Publisher: Encounter Books

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1893554104

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Each of Siegel's three urban portraits--New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, -- shows the desperate remedies undertaken by cities searching for a lifeline back to the future whose promise they once seemed to embody. In a narrative that acknowledges the large historical forces that have remade the face of America over the last three decades, but insists that social policies are not merely foregone conclusions waiting to happen, Siegel holds up a mirror to our urban naure and tells us much about the way we live now.

Democracy Is Self-Government
Democracy Is Self-Government

Author: Harold W. Percival

Publisher: Word Foundation

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 9780911650105

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Mr. Percival provides an original and entirely new concept of True Democracy, where personal and national affairs are brought under the spotlight of eternal truths. This is not a political book, as generally understood. It is an unusual series of essays that sheds light on the direct connection between the conscious self in every human body and the affairs of the world in which we live. At this crucial period in our civilization, new powers of destruction have emerged that could sound the parting knell for life on earth as we know it. And yet, there is still time to stem the tide. Percival tells us that each human being is the source of all causes, conditions, problems and solutions. Therefore, we each have an opportunity, as well as a duty, to bring eternal Law, Justice, and Harmony to the world. This begins with learning to govern ourselves - our passions, vices, appetites, and behavior. The purpose of this book is to point the way.--H. W. Percival.

Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government
Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government

Author: Alexander Meiklejohn

Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 1584770872

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Reprint of sole edition. Originally published: New York: Harper Brothers Publishers, [1948]. "Dr. Meiklejohn, in a book which greatly needed writing, has thought through anew the foundations and structure of our theory of free speech . . . he rejects all compromise. He reexamines the fundamental principles of Justice Holmes' theory of free speech and finds it wanting because, as he views it, under the Holmes doctrine speech is not free enough. In these few pages, Holmes meets an adversary worthy of him . . . Meiklejohn in his own way writes a prose as piercing as Holmes, and as a foremost American philosopher, the reach of his culture is as great . . . this is the most dangerous assault which the Holmes position has ever borne." --JOHN P. FRANK, Texas Law Review 27:405-412. ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN [1872-1964] was dean of Brown University from 1901-1913, when he became president of Amherst College. In 1923 Meiklejohn moved to the University of Wisconsin- Madison, where he set up an experimental college. He was a longtime member of the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1945 he was a United States delegate to the charter meeting of UNESCO in London. Lectureships have been named for him at Brown University and at the University of Wisconsin. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.

Bureaucracy and Self-Government
Bureaucracy and Self-Government

Author: Brian J. Cook

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2014-12-15

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1421415534

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A thorough update to this well-regarded political history of American public administration. In this new edition of his provocative book Bureaucracy and Self-Government, Brian J. Cook reconsiders his thesis regarding the inescapable tension between the ideal of self-government and the reality of administratively centered governance. Revisiting his historical exploration of competing conceptions of politics, government, and public administration, Cook offers a novel way of thinking constitutionally about public administration that transcends debates about “big government.” Cook enriches his historical analysis with new scholarship and extends that analysis to the present, taking account of significant developments since the mid-1990s. Each chapter has been updated, and two new chapters sharpen Cook’s argument for recognizing a constitutive dimension in normative theorizing about public administration. The second edition also includes reviews of Jeffersonian impacts on administrative theory and practice and Jacksonian developments in national administrative structures and functions, a look at the administrative theorizing that presaged progressive reforms in civil service, and insight into the confounding complexities that characterize public thinking about administration in a postmodern political order.

Self-governing Socialism: Historical development. Social and political philosophy
Self-governing Socialism: Historical development. Social and political philosophy

Author: Branko Horvat

Publisher: M.E. Sharpe

Published: 1975

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 9780873320504

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First published in 1975. VOLUME ONE covers Historical Development Social and Political Philosophy. No study or collection of material approaching self-government as a worldwide phenomenon and dealing with all The purpose of the present Reader is to fill this gap. This Reader traces the development self-government as a worldwide phenomenon and dealing with all This Reader traces the development of self-government from its beginnings as an apparently utopian idea of a handful of visionaries a century and a half ago to its implementation on a national scale in the contemporary world. All fundamental aspects of this development are dealt with--historical, philosophical, sociological, political, and economic. Contributions from some twenty countries are included. Several synthetic papers have been written especially for this book; because of their inclusion, as well as the comprehensiveness of the book's coverage, this work transcends the usual confines of a reader.The edtiors' goal was to assemble all important contributions of historical and theoretical value in one book.