Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere

Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere
Author: Oren Ben-Dor
Publisher: Hart Publishing
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2000-10-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1841131113

Ben-Dor (law, U. of Southampton) developed this book concerning critical constitutionalism from his doctoral thesis at University College London. In it, he interprets unpublished and recently published texts by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), first reconstructing the most general argument about Bentham's legal and political thought as a founder of utilitarianism, and then analyzing Bentham's work within the context of contemporary debates in legal and political philosophy. He concludes that the technical and reductionist methodology associated with utilitarianism don't do justice to the theory, which identifies the maximization of pleasure as the most fundamental self-interest guiding people. Distributed by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.

Public Spaces, Marketplaces, and the Constitution

Public Spaces, Marketplaces, and the Constitution
Author: Anthony Maniscalco
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2015-10-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1438458436

Examines how the Supreme Court has banished free expression from shopping malls and other public spaces. In spite of their public attractions and millions of visitors, most shopping malls are now off-limits to free speech and expressive activity. The same may be said about many other public spaces and marketplaces in American cities and suburbs, leaving scholars and other observers to wonder where civic engagement is lawfully permitted in the United States. In Public Spaces, Marketplaces, and the Constitution, Anthony Maniscalco draws on key legal decisions, social theory, and urban history to demonstrate that public spaces have been split apart from First Amendment protections, while the expression of political ideas has been excluded from privately owned, publicly accessible malls. Today, the traditional indoor suburban shopping mall, that icon of modern American capitalism and culture, is being replaced by outdoor retail centers. Yet the law and courts have been slow to catch up. Maniscalco argues that scholars, students, and the public must confront these innovations in commercial design and consumer practices, as well as what they portend for contemporary metropolitan America and its civic spaces.

Habermas and the Public Sphere

Habermas and the Public Sphere
Author: Craig Calhoun
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 516
Release: 1993-03-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780262531146

In this book, scholars from a wide range of disciplines respond to Habermas's most directly relevant work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. The relationship between civil society and public life is in the forefront of contemporary discussion. No single scholarly voice informs this discussion more than that of Jürgen Habermas. His contributions have shaped the nature of debates over critical theory, feminism, cultural studies, and democratic politics. In this book, scholars from a wide range of disciplines respond to Habermas's most directly relevant work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. From political theory to cultural criticism, from ethics to gender studies, from history to media studies, these essays challenge, refine, and extend our understanding of the social foundations and changing character of democracy and public discourse. Contributors Hannah Arendt, Keith Baker, Seyla Benhabib, Harry C. Boyte, Craig Calhoun, Geoff Eley, Nancy Fraser, Nicholas Garnham, Jürgen Habermas, Peter Hohendahl, Lloyd Kramer, Benjamin Lee, Thomas McCarthy, Moishe Postone, Mary P. Ryan, Michael Schudson, Michael Warner, David Zaret

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Author: J?rgen Habermas
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2015-01-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0745692338

This major work retraces the emergence and development of the Bourgeois public sphere - that is, a sphere which was distinct from the state and in which citizens could discuss issues of general interest. In analysing the historical transformations of this sphere, Habermas recovers a concept which is of crucial significance for current debates in social and political theory. Habermas focuses on the liberal notion of the bourgeois public sphere as it emerged in Europe in the early modern period. He examines both the writings of political theorists, including Marx, Mill and de Tocqueville, and the specific institutions and social forms in which the public sphere was realized. This brilliant and influential work has been widely recognized for many years as a classic of contemporary social and political thought, of interest to students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.

State Punishment

State Punishment
Author: Nicola Lacey
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2012-10-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1134838018

Nicola Lacey presents a new approach to the question of the moral justification of punishment by the State. She focuses on the theory of punishments in context of other political questions, such as the nature of political obligation and the function and scope of criminal law. Arguing that no convincing set of justifying reasons has so far been produced, she puts forward a theory of punishments which places the values of the community at its centre.

New Media and Freedom of Expression

New Media and Freedom of Expression
Author: András Koltay
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2019-07-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509916490

The principles of freedom of expression have been developed over centuries. How are they reserved and passed on? How can large internet gatekeepers be required to respect freedom of expression and to contribute actively to a diverse and plural marketplace of ideas? These are key issues for media regulation, and will remain so for the foreseeable decades. The book starts with the foundations of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and then goes on to explore the general issues concerning the regulation of the internet as a specific medium. It then turns to analysing the legal issues relating to the three most important gatekeepers whose operations directly affect freedom of expression: ISPs, search engines and social media platforms. Finally it summarises the potential future regulatory and media policy directions. The book takes a comparative legal approach, focusing primarily on English and American regulations, case law and jurisprudential debates, but it also details the relevant international developments (Council of Europe, European Union) as well as the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.

The Law of Deliberative Democracy

The Law of Deliberative Democracy
Author: Ron Levy
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1134502060

Laws have colonised most of the corners of political practice, and now substantially determine the process and even the product of democracy. Yet analysis of these laws of politics has been hobbled by a limited set of theories about politics. Largely absent is the perspective of deliberative democracy – a rising theme in political studies that seeks a more rational, cooperative, informed, and truly democratic politics. Legal and political scholarship often view each other in reductive terms. This book breaks through such caricatures to provide the first full-length examination of whether and how the law of politics can match deliberative democratic ideals. Essential reading for those interested in either law or politics, the book presents a challenging critique of laws governing electoral politics in the English-speaking world. Judges often act as spoilers, vetoing or naively reshaping schemes meant to enhance deliberation. This pattern testifies to deliberation’s weak penetration into legal consciousness. It is also a fault of deliberative democracy scholarship itself, which says little about how deliberation connects with the actual practice of law. Superficially, the law of politics and deliberative democracy appear starkly incompatible. Yet, after laying out this critique, The Law of Deliberative Democracy considers prospects for reform. The book contends that the conflict between law and public deliberation is not inevitable: it results from judicial and legislative choices. An extended, original analysis demonstrates how lawyers and deliberativists can engage with each other to bridge their two solitudes.

Television and the Public Sphere

Television and the Public Sphere
Author: Peter Dahlgren
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 196
Release: 1995-10-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780803989238

In this broad-ranging text, Peter Dahlgren clarifies the underlying theoretical concepts of civil society and the public sphere, and relates these to a critical analysis of the practice of television as journalism, as information and as entertainment. He demonstrates the limits and the possibilities of the television medium and the formats of popular journalism. These issues are linked to the potential of the audience to interpret or resist messages, and to construct its own meanings. What does a realistic understanding of the functioning and the capabilities of television imply for citizenship and democracy in a mediated age?

Democracy Without Shortcuts

Democracy Without Shortcuts
Author: Cristina Lafont
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2020-01-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198848188

This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require citizens to blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics.

The Perilous Public Square

The Perilous Public Square
Author: David E. Pozen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 613
Release: 2020-06-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0231551991

Americans of all political persuasions fear that “free speech” is under attack. This may seem strange at a time when legal protections for free expression remain strong and overt government censorship minimal. Yet a range of political, economic, social, and technological developments have raised profound challenges for how we manage speech. New threats to political discourse are mounting—from the rise of authoritarian populism and national security secrecy to the decline of print journalism and public trust in experts to the “fake news,” trolling, and increasingly subtle modes of surveillance made possible by digital technologies. The Perilous Public Square brings together leading thinkers to identify and investigate today’s multifaceted threats to free expression. They go beyond the campus and the courthouse to pinpoint key structural changes in the means of mass communication and forms of global capitalism. Beginning with Tim Wu’s inquiry into whether the First Amendment is obsolete, Matthew Connelly, Jack Goldsmith, Kate Klonick, Frederick Schauer, Olivier Sylvain, and Heather Whitney explore ways to address these dangers and preserve the essential features of a healthy democracy. Their conversations with other leading thinkers, including Danielle Keats Citron, Jelani Cobb, Frank Pasquale, Geoffrey R. Stone, Rebecca Tushnet, and Kirsten Weld, cross the disciplinary boundaries of First Amendment law, internet law, media policy, journalism, legal history, and legal theory, offering fresh perspectives on fortifying the speech system and reinvigorating the public square.