Mobilizing for Democracy
Mobilizing for Democracy

Author: Vera Schatten Coelho

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.

Published: 2013-04-04

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1848139152

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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.

Becoming Political
Becoming Political

Author: Carole L. Hahn

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1998-04-02

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1438405405

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This book sheds light on the question: Under what conditions do democratic attitudes and values take root in youth? Using a comparative perspective, Becoming Political describes alternative forms of education for democracy and points to consequences of various alternatives in diverse settings. This study of civic education and adolescent political attitudes contains rich descriptive information from interviews with students and teachers and classroom observations in England, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Such qualitative information gathered over the past decade complements findings from surveys administered to students ages fifteen through nineteen in fifty schools in the five countries. Chapters focus on civic education in the five countries, adolescent political attitudes and behaviors, gender and political attitudes, support for free expression for diverse views, and classroom climate and the investigation of controversial public policy issues. An appendix describes the varied political contexts in which youth in the five democracies are being politically socialized. The book will be of use to readers interested in social studies education, comparative education, and youth political socialization, as well as education for democracy.

What Kind of Citizen?
What Kind of Citizen?

Author: Joel Westheimer

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 080776972X

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"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"--

Education and Democratic Citizenship in America
Education and Democratic Citizenship in America

Author: Norman H. Nie

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1996-11-15

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9780226583891

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Education affects these two dimensions in distinct ways, influencing democratic enlightenment through cognitive proficiency and sophistication, and political engagement through position in social networks. For characteristics of enlightenment, formal education simply adds to the degree to which citizens support and are knowledgeable about democratic principles.

Political Identity and Democratic Citizenship in Turbulent Times
Political Identity and Democratic Citizenship in Turbulent Times

Author: Kristensen, Niels Noergaard

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2020-06-19

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1799836789

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Turbulent times challenge democratic politics and governance in Western countries. Party systems, in many instances, have failed to produce solutions to vital policy problems, like immigration, state borders, welfare, or environmental issues. While subjective perceptions of macroeconomic outcomes are consistently related to political trust at the micro level, few studies have explored how individuals develop political engagement and identity. New insights are needed from studies focusing on how people become politically active and how political identities develop. Political Identity and Democratic Citizenship in Turbulent Times is a critical scholarly research publication that investigates, discusses, deconstructs, analyzes, and tests the concept of political identity and its evolving role in modern democracy. Moreover, it explores the contours of politics and brings together studies that examine the democratic potential of a diversity of participatory spheres, institutions, and arenas. Highlighting topics such as political culture, consumerism, and welfare states, this book is ideal for politicians, policymakers, government officials, sociologists, historians, academicians, professionals, researchers, and students.

Politics and the Order of Love
Politics and the Order of Love

Author: Eric Gregory

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-08-15

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 0226307514

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Augustine—for all of his influence on Western culture and politics—was hardly a liberal. Drawing from theology, feminist theory, and political philosophy, Eric Gregory offers here a liberal ethics of citizenship, one less susceptible to anti-liberal critics because it is informed by the Augustinian tradition. The result is a book that expands Augustinian imaginations for liberalism and liberal imaginations for Augustinianism. Gregory examines a broad range of Augustine’s texts and their reception in different disciplines and identifies two classical themes which have analogues in secular political theory: love—and related notions of care, solidarity, and sympathy—and sin—as well as related notions of cruelty, evil, and narrow self-interest. From an Augustinian point of view, Gregory argues, love and sin constrain each other in ways that yield a distinctive vision of the limits and possibilities of politics. In providing a constructive argument for Christian participation in liberal democratic societies, Gregory advances efforts to revive a political theology in which love’s relation to justice is prominent. Politics and the Order of Love will provoke new conversations for those interested in Christian ethics, moral psychology, and the role of religion in a liberal society.

Democracy and Political Ignorance
Democracy and Political Ignorance

Author: Ilya Somin

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2013-10-02

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 0804789312

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One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Often, many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This may be rational, but it creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know. In Democracy and Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin mines the depths of ignorance in America and reveals the extent to which it is a major problem for democracy. Somin weighs various options for solving this problem, arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government. Somin provocatively argues that people make better decisions when they choose what to purchase in the market or which state or local government to live under, than when they vote at the ballot box, because they have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information and to use it wisely.

Anxious Politics
Anxious Politics

Author: Bethany Albertson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-08-31

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1107081483

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Anxious Politics argues that political anxiety affects the news we consume, who we trust, and what public policies we support.

Education for Democracy
Education for Democracy

Author: Steven P. Camicia

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2021-01-01

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13: 1648023142

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This book presents a vision of education for democracy built around promoting equity and social justice. In doing so, Camicia and Knowles challenge many of the common perspectives of democratic education, deliberation, and the common good. The authors have published widely on the topic of education for democracy. This book builds upon their work to assist practicing teachers, teacher educators, graduate students, and educational researchers in understanding the background of education for democracy, as well as new directions for the field. While one of the primary goals of public schools is to teach students how to build better communities, this goal is increasingly difficult given the degree of political polarization within societies. Recent events provide no shortage of challenges to democracy in the United States and beyond. Utilizing theory and research, Camicia and Knowles promote instructional methods that are responsive to changing cultural and political contexts. There is an increasing need to rethink democratic principles and how these principles might be supported in classrooms in order to teach for social justice. This requires a move away from often stated idealistic notions of deliberative democracy, toward a perspective of education for democracy that incorporates aspects of identity, interests, and inequitable power relations within society.