Democracy On The Ground
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| Author | : Charles Taylor |
| Publisher | : Harvard University Press |
| Total Pages | : 121 |
| Release | : 2020-03-03 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 0674246632 |
“An urgent manifesto for the reconstruction of democratic belonging in our troubled times.” —Davide Panagia Across the world, democracies are suffering from a disconnect between the people and political elites. In communities where jobs and industry are scarce, many feel the government is incapable of understanding their needs or addressing their problems. The resulting frustration has fueled the success of destabilizing demagogues. To reverse this pattern and restore responsible government, we need to reinvigorate democracy at the local level. But what does that mean? Drawing on examples of successful community building in cities large and small, from a shrinking village in rural Austria to a neglected section of San Diego, Reconstructing Democracy makes a powerful case for re-engaging citizens. It highlights innovative grassroots projects and shows how local activists can form alliances and discover their own power to solve problems.
| Author | : Dave Meslin |
| Publisher | : Penguin |
| Total Pages | : 385 |
| Release | : 2019-05-14 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 0143197061 |
As seen on TVO’s adaptation Unrigged A handbook of democratic solutions in troubled times, from the activist the media call a "wizard," a "mastermind," "the ultimate ideas guy," a "mad scientist," a "start-up genius." Our democracy is a trainwreck. Our elections feel hollow and our legislatures have become toxic. Fierce partisanship, centralized power, distorted election results and rigged systems all contribute to our growing cynicism. Voters are increasingly turning towards the angriest candidates, or simply tuning out completely and staying at home. But as Dave Meslin's career has shown, we can fix things. We can turn elite power structures upside down. We can give a voice to ordinary people. But it means fixing things from the bottom up, and starting locally. It's hard to change the world if you can't change a municipal by-law. Teardown shows readers how to do both. And it will show us that these two challenges are not fundamentally different. From environmental activism to public space advocacy to the ongoing campaign for electoral reform, Dave Meslin has been both out on the street in marches and in the back rooms drawing up policy. With Teardown he reminds us that the future of our species doesn't need to look like a trainwreck. That we're capable of so much more. It's time to raise our expectations: of the system, of each other and of ourselves. Only then can we re-imagine a new democracy, unrecognizable from today's political mess. This book is a recipe for change. A cure for cynicism. A war on apathy.
| Author | : Rasmus Kleis Nielsen |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 250 |
| Release | : 2012-02-05 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 1400840449 |
Political campaigns today are won or lost in the so-called ground war--the strategic deployment of teams of staffers, volunteers, and paid part-timers who work the phones and canvass block by block, house by house, voter by voter. Ground Wars provides an in-depth ethnographic portrait of two such campaigns, New Jersey Democrat Linda Stender's and that of Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, who both ran for Congress in 2008. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen examines how American political operatives use "personalized political communication" to engage with the electorate, and weighs the implications of ground war tactics for how we understand political campaigns and what it means to participate in them. He shows how ground wars are waged using resources well beyond those of a given candidate and their staff. These include allied interest groups and civic associations, party-provided technical infrastructures that utilize large databases with detailed individual-level information for targeting voters, and armies of dedicated volunteers and paid part-timers. Nielsen challenges the notion that political communication in America must be tightly scripted, controlled, and conducted by a select coterie of professionals. Yet he also quashes the romantic idea that canvassing is a purer form of grassroots politics. In today's political ground wars, Nielsen demonstrates, even the most ordinary-seeming volunteer knocking at your door is backed up by high-tech targeting technologies and party expertise. Ground Wars reveals how personalized political communication is profoundly influencing electoral outcomes and transforming American democracy.
| Author | : Jeremy Gilbert |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 258 |
| Release | : 2013 |
| Genre | : Democracy |
| ISBN | : 9781849649773 |
Common Ground explores the philosophical relationship between collectivity, individuality, affect and agency in the neoliberal era. Jeremy Gilbert argues that individualism is forced upon us by neoliberal culture, fatally limiting our capacity to escape the current crisis of democratic politics. The book asks how forces and ideas opposed to neoliberal hegemony, and to the individualist tradition in Western thought, might serve to protect some form of communality, and how far we must accept assumptions about the nature of individuality and collectivity which are the legacy of an elitist tradition. Along the way it examines different ideas and practices of collectivity, from conservative notions of hierarchical and patriarchal communities to the politics of 'horizontality' and 'the commons' which are at the heart of radical movements today. Exploring this fundamental faultline in contemporary political struggle, Common Ground proposes a radically non-individualist mode of imagining social life, collective creativity and democratic possibility.
| Author | : David Orr |
| Publisher | : The New Press |
| Total Pages | : 481 |
| Release | : 2020-03-03 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 1620975149 |
A stellar group of America's leading political thinkers explore how to reboot our democracy The presidential election of 2016 highlighted some long-standing flaws in American democracy and added a few new ones. Across the political spectrum, most Americans do not believe that democracy is delivering on its promises of fairness, justice, shared prosperity, or security in a changing world. The nation cannot even begin to address climate change and economic justice if it remains paralyzed by political gridlock. Democracy Unchained is about making American democracy work to solve problems that have long impaired our system of governance. The book is the collective work of thirty of the most perceptive writers, practitioners, scientists, educators, and journalists writing today, who are committed to moving the political conversation from the present anger and angst to the positive and constructive change necessary to achieve the full promise of a durable democracy that works for everyone and protects our common future. Including essays by Yasha Mounk on populism, Chisun Lee on money and politics, Ras Baraka on building democracy from the ground up, and Bill McKibben on climate, Democracy Unchained is the articulation of faith in democracy and will be required reading for all who are working to make democracy a reality. Table of Contents Foreword Introduction David W. Orr Part I. The Crisis of Democracy Populism and Democracy Yascha Mounk Reconstructing Our Constitutional Democracy K. Sabeel Rahman Restoring Healthy Party Competition Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson When Democracy Becomes Something Else: The Problem of Elections and What to Do About It Andrew Gumbel The Best Answer to Money in Politics After Citizens United: Public Campaign Financing in the Empire State and Beyond Chisun Lee Remaking the Presidency After Trump Jeremi Suri The Problem of Presidentialism Stephen Skowronek Part II. Foundations of Democracy Renewing the American Democratic Faith Steven C. Rockefeller American Land, American Democracy Eric Freyfogle Race and Democracy: The Kennedys, Obama, Trump, and Us Michael Eric Dyson Liberty and Justice for All: Latina Activist Efforts to Strengthen Democracy in 2018 Maria Hinojosa What Black Women Teach Us About Democracy Andra Gillespie and Nadia E. Brown Engines of Democracy: Racial Justice and Cultural Power Rashad Robinson Civic and Environmental Education: Protecting the Planet and Our Democracy Judy Braus The Supreme Court's Legitimacy Crisis and Constitutional Democracy’s Future Dawn Johnsen Part III. Policy Challenges Can Democracy Survive the Internet? David Hickton The New New Deal: How to Reregulate Capitalism Robert Kuttner First Understand Why They're Winning: How to Save Democracy from the Anti-Immigrant Far Right Sasha Polakow-Suransky No Time Left: How the System Is Failing to Address Our Ultimate Crisis Bill McKibben Powering Democracy Through Clean Energy Denise G. Fairchild The Long Crisis: American Foreign Policy Before and After Trump Jessica Tuchman Mathews Part IV. Who Acts, and How? The Case for Strong Government William S. Becker The States Nick Rathod Democracy in a Struggling Swing State Amy Hanauer Can Independent Voters Save American Democracy? Why 42 Percent of American Voters Are Independent and How They Can Transform Our Political System Jaqueline Salit and Thom Reilly Philanthropy and Democracy Stephen B. Heintz Keeping the Republic Dan Moulthrop The Future of Democracy Mayor Ras Baraka Building a University Where All People Matter Michael M. Crow, William B. Dabars, and Derrick M. Anderson Biophilia and Direct Democracy Timothy Beatley Purpose-Driven Capitalism Mindy Lubber Restoring Democracy: Nature's Trust, Human Survival, and Constitutional Fiduciary Governance 397 Mary Christina Wood Conclusion Ganesh Sitaraman
| Author | : Angela B. Cornell |
| Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
| Total Pages | : 385 |
| Release | : 2022-01-20 |
| Genre | : Law |
| ISBN | : 1108879632 |
We are currently witnessing some of the greatest challenges to democratic regimes since the 1930s, with democratic institutions losing ground in numerous countries throughout the world. At the same time organized labor has been under assault worldwide, with steep declines in union density rates. In this timely handbook, scholars in law, political science, history, and sociology explore the role of organized labor and the working class in the historical construction of democracy. They analyze recent patterns of democratic erosion, examining its relationship to the political weakening of organized labor and, in several cases, the political alliances forged by workers in contexts of nationalist or populist political mobilization. The volume breaks new ground in providing cross-regional perspectives on labor and democracy in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Beyond academia, this volume is essential reading for policymakers and practitioners concerned with the relationship between labor and democracy.
| Author | : Ignacio Walker |
| Publisher | : University of Notre Dame Pess |
| Total Pages | : 280 |
| Release | : 2013-04-30 |
| Genre | : Law |
| ISBN | : 026809666X |
In 2009, Ignacio Walker—scholar, politician, and one of Latin America’s leading public intellectuals—published La Democracia en América Latina. Now available in English, with a new prologue, and significantly revised and updated for an English-speaking audience, Democracy in Latin America: Between Hope and Despair contributes to the necessary and urgent task of exploring both the possibilities and difficulties of establishing a stable democracy in Latin America. Walker argues that, throughout the past century, Latin American history has been marked by the search for responses or alternatives to the crisis of oligarchic rule and the struggle to replace the oligarchic order with a democratic one. After reviewing some of the principal theories of democracy based on an analysis of the interactions of political, economic, and social factors, Walker maintains that it is primarily the actors, institutions, and public policies—not structural determinants—that create progress or regression in Latin American democracy.
| Author | : Rachel Maddow |
| Publisher | : Crown |
| Total Pages | : 461 |
| Release | : 2019-10-01 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 0525575499 |
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Big Oil and Gas Versus Democracy—Winner Take All “A rollickingly well-written book, filled with fascinating, exciting, and alarming stories about the impact of the oil and gas industry on the world today.”—The New York Times Book Review In 2010, the words “earthquake swarm” entered the lexicon in Oklahoma. That same year, a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia—including his iconic crystal-encrusted white glove—was sold at auction for over $1 million to a guy who was, officially, just the lowly forestry minister of the tiny nation of Equatorial Guinea. And in 2014, revolutionaries in Ukraine raided the palace of their ousted president and found a zoo of peacocks, gilded toilets, and a floating restaurant modeled after a Spanish galleon. Unlikely as it might seem, there is a thread connecting these events, and Rachel Maddow follows it to its crooked source: the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry. With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe, revealing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas along the way, and drawing a surprising conclusion about why the Russian government hacked the 2016 U.S. election. She deftly shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Vladimir Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the West’s most important alliances, and the United States. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, most notably ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson. The oil and gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, “like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can’t really blame the lion. It’s in her nature.” Blowout is a call to contain the lion: to stop subsidizing the wealthiest businesses on earth, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of the world’s most destructive industry and its enablers. The stakes have never been higher. As Maddow writes, “Democracy either wins this one or disappears.”
| Author | : Brandon Van Dyck |
| Publisher | : Pitt Latin American |
| Total Pages | : 248 |
| Release | : 2021-09-21 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 9780822946946 |
Around the world, established parties are weakening, and new parties are failing to take root. In many cases, outsiders have risen and filled the void, posing a threat to democracy. Why do most new parties fail? Under what conditions do they survive and become long-term electoral fixtures? Brandon Van Dyck investigates these questions in the context of the contemporary Latin American left. He argues that stable parties are not an outgrowth of democracy. On the contrary, contemporary democracy impedes successful party building. To construct a durable party, elites must invest time and labor, and they must share power with activists. Because today's elites have access to party substitutes like mass media, they can win votes without making such sacrifices in time, labor, and autonomy. Only under conditions of soft authoritarianism do office-seeking elites have a strong electoral incentive to invest in party building. Van Dyck illustrates this argument through a comparative analysis of four new left parties in Latin America: two that collapsed and two that survived.
| Author | : Joshua Kurlantzick |
| Publisher | : Yale University Press |
| Total Pages | : 404 |
| Release | : 2013-03-19 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 030018896X |
DIVSince the end of the Cold War, the assumption among most political theorists has been that as nations develop economically, they will also become more democratic—especially if a vibrant middle class takes root. This assumption underlies the expansion of the European Union and much of American foreign policy, bolstered by such examples as South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and even to some extent Russia. Where democratization has failed or retreated, aberrant conditions take the blame: Islamism, authoritarian Chinese influence, or perhaps the rise of local autocrats./divDIV /divDIVBut what if the failures of democracy are not exceptions? In this thought-provoking study of democratization, Joshua Kurlantzick proposes that the spate of retreating democracies, one after another over the past two decades, is not just a series of exceptions. Instead, it reflects a new and disturbing trend: democracy in worldwide decline. The author investigates the state of democracy in a variety of countries, why the middle class has turned against democracy in some cases, and whether the decline in global democratization is reversible./div
