Clash of Democracies and Autocracies Can Democracies Be Saved?

Clash of Democracies and Autocracies Can Democracies Be Saved?
Author: Ben Zechariyah
Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2024-08-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

This is a short history of evolution of governance, focused on the American and Swiss democracies. Plato in his dialogues argued that by investigating what is behind the idea of democracy, we may find its true form and function. And thus, by discovering its true form and function, we could know how best democracy could become a well-functioning reality. By such inquiry, the author tries to discover what was the vision of American forefathers for the American democracy when the American people were incorporated as one indivisible nation under God defined by the United States Constitution in 1787. Today, the clash of democracies and autocracies is being played out in Ukraine as its bloodbath being watched daily around the world. This must be stopped by every means available and by every person who prefers democracy. The pen, after all, was victorious against the most powerful empire of its day. Why would it not work again in twenty- first century's lightning speed of the enlightening Digital Age?

Freedom in the World 2018

Freedom in the World 2018
Author: Freedom House
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 1265
Release: 2019-01-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1538112035

Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.

Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy

Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy
Author: Michael Albertus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2018-01-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 110819642X

This book argues that - in terms of institutional design, the allocation of power and privilege, and the lived experiences of citizens - democracy often does not restart the political game after displacing authoritarianism. Democratic institutions are frequently designed by the outgoing authoritarian regime to shield incumbent elites from the rule of law and give them an unfair advantage over politics and the economy after democratization. Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy systematically documents and analyzes the constitutional tools that outgoing authoritarian elites use to accomplish these ends, such as electoral system design, legislative appointments, federalism, legal immunities, constitutional tribunal design, and supermajority thresholds for change. The study provides wide-ranging evidence for these claims using data that spans the globe and dates from 1800 to the present. Albertus and Menaldo also conduct detailed case studies of Chile and Sweden. In doing so, they explain why some democracies successfully overhaul their elite-biased constitutions for more egalitarian social contracts.

Ill Winds

Ill Winds
Author: Larry Jay Diamond
Publisher:
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 0525560629

Larry Diamond, a lifelong scholar of democracy, examines the history of its struggles and its future. The defence of democracy has relied for decades on U.S. global leadership, including its alliances with advanced democracies in Europe and Asia. But, he warns, if America does not reclaim its traditional place as the keystone of democracy, today's global authoritarian trend will accelerate. But there is hope - Diamond offers concrete, deeply informed suggestions for policymakers and citizens alike to turn the tide and usher a new age of democratic renewal.

Powerful Patriots

Powerful Patriots
Author: Jessica Chen Weiss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2014
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199387559

What role do nationalism and popular protest play in China's foreign relations? Chinese authorities permitted anti-American demonstrations in 1999 but repressed them in 2001 during two crises in U.S.-China relations. Anti-Japanese protests were tolerated in 1985, 2005, and 2012 but banned in 1990 and 1996. Protests over Taiwan, the issue of greatest concern to Chinese nationalists, have never been allowed. To explain this variation, Powerful Patriots identifies the diplomatic as well as domestic factors that drive protest management in authoritarian states. Because nationalist protests are costly to repress and may turn against the government, allowing protests demonstrates resolve and makes compromise more costly in diplomatic relations. Repressing protests, by contrast, sends a credible signal of reassurance, facilitating diplomatic flexibility. Powerful Patriots traces China's management of dozens of nationalist protests and their consequences between 1985 and 2012.

How Democracies Die

How Democracies Die
Author: Steven Levitsky
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2019-01-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1524762946

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Time • Foreign Affairs • WBUR • Paste Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved. Praise for How Democracies Die “What we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.”—The Washington Post “Where Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.”—Ezra Klein, Vox “If you only read one book for the rest of the year, read How Democracies Die. . . .This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history. . . . The best commentary on our politics, no contest.”—Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter) “A smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.”—Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Brookings Big Ideas for America

Brookings Big Ideas for America
Author: Michael E. O'Hanlon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2017
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815731310

As a new administration takes office, what are the biggest issues facing the country? The Brookings Institution offers answers to that question in this volume, which continues the Brookings tradition of providing each incoming administration with a nonpartisan analysis of the major domestic and foreign questions confronting America. On the domestic front, Brookings scholars tackle topics ranging from health care and improving economic opportunity to criminal justice reform, lawful hacking, and improving infrastructure. The alliance system, the relationship with China, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria among the foreign policies issues addressed. Throughout, Brookings scholars share their individual ideas on how best to address the agenda that awaits the new administration.

Democracy and Education

Democracy and Education
Author: John Dewey
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 456
Release: 1916
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN:

. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.

Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?

Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?
Author: Mark A. Graber
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2018-08-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0190888997

Is the world facing a serious threat to the protection of constitutional democracy? There is a genuine debate about the meaning of the various political events that have, for many scholars and observers, generated a feeling of deep foreboding about our collective futures all over the world. Do these events represent simply the normal ebb and flow of political possibilities, or do they instead portend a more permanent move away from constitutional democracy that had been thought triumphant after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989? Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? addresses these questions head-on: Are the forces weakening constitutional democracy around the world general or nation-specific? Why have some major democracies seemingly not experienced these problems? How can we as scholars and citizens think clearly about the ideas of "constitutional crisis" or "constitutional degeneration"? What are the impacts of forces such as globalization, immigration, income inequality, populism, nationalism, religious sectarianism? Bringing together leading scholars to engage critically with the crises facing constitutional democracies in the 21st century, these essays diagnose the causes of the present afflictions in regimes, regions, and across the globe, believing at this stage that diagnosis is of central importance - as Abraham Lincoln said in his "House Divided" speech, "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it."

The Rise of Democracy

The Rise of Democracy
Author: Christopher Hobson
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN:

Little over 200 years ago, a quarter of a century of warfare with an 'outlaw state' brought the great powers of Europe to their knees. That state was the revolutionary democracy of France. Since then, there has been a remarkable transformation in the way democracy is understood and valued - today, it is the non-democractic states that are seen as rogue regimes. Now, Christopher Hobson explores democracy's remarkable rise from obscurity to centre stage in contemporary international relations.