The Rebirth of Urban Democracy

The Rebirth of Urban Democracy
Author: Kent E. Portney
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2002-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780815723660

In an era when government seems remote and difficult to approach, participatory democracy may seem a hopelessly romantic notion. Yet nothing is more crucial to the future of American democracy than to develop some way of spurring greater citizen participation. In this important book, Jeffrey Berry, Ken Portney, and Ken Thompson examine cities that have created systems of neighborhood government and incorporated citizens in public policymaking. Through careful research and analysis, the authors find that neighborhood based participation is the key to revitalizing American democracy. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy provides a thorough examination of five cities with strong citizen participation programs--Birmingham, Dayton, Portland, St. Paul, and San Antonio. In each city, the authors explore whether neighborhood associations encourage more people to participate; whether these associations are able to promote policy responsiveness on the art of local governments; and whether participation in these associations increases the capacity of people to take part in government. Finally, the authors outline the steps that can be taken to increase political participation in urban America. Berry, Portney, and Thomson show that citizens in participatory programs are able to get their issues on the public agenda and develop a stronger sense of community, greater trust in government officials, and more confidence in the political system. From a rigorous evaluation of surveys and interviews with thousands of citizens and policymakers, the authors also find that central governments in these cities are highly responsive to their neighborhoods and that less conflict exists among citizens and policymakers. The authors assert that these programs can provide a blueprint for major reform in cities across the country. They outline the components for successful participation programs and offer recommendations for those who want to get involved. They demonstrate that participatio

The Rebirth of Democracy

The Rebirth of Democracy
Author: International Institute for Democracy
Publisher: Council of Europe
Total Pages: 452
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9789287130945

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The Rebirth of Russian Democracy

The Rebirth of Russian Democracy
Author: Nicolai N. Petro
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1995
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674750012

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Democracy's Rebirth

Democracy's Rebirth
Author: Dick Simpson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2022
Genre: Chicago (Ill.)
ISBN: 9780252044304

"In the third decade of the 21st century we face major challenges to democracy. We are struggling to build a multi-racial, multiethnic democracy based upon political and social equality. We are finding it especially difficult to create an economy that empowers everyone and distributes economic rewards fairly without extreme gaps between rich and poor. The challenges to democracy are both theoretical and very practical. A rather remarkable consensus has emerged among scholars--especially, among political scientists--about the problems we face. There is less consensus about what can be done to confront those problems. In Democracy's Rebirth, Dick Simpson synthesizes the theoretical and empirical studies from many different authors, merges it with his own practical political experience, to frame a single coherent vision of what is to be done at this critical juncture in our history. The result is both a theoretical discourse and a practical manifesto. With 50 years of political research and his unique perspective as a former political candidate, elected official, campaign strategist, and government adviser, Simpson outlines the local, national, and global challenges to democracy. For Simpson, the challenges exist not only at the national level but in cities like Chicago, so he uses Chicago as a case study of how these social, political, and economic challenges play out at the local level. The goal is not utopia, not heaven on earth. However, if democracy is to be reborn in Chicago and America, we must create a more participatory democracy but also a better, more deliberative democracy, led by strong democratic leaders"--

Alternatives to Democracy in Twentieth-Century Europe

Alternatives to Democracy in Twentieth-Century Europe
Author: Sabrina P. Ramet
Publisher: Central European University Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2019-06-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9633863104

Alternatives to Democracy in Twentieth-Century Europe examines the historical examples of Soviet Communism, Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and Spanish Anarchism, suggesting that, in spite of their differences, they had some key features in common, in particular their shared hostility to individualism, representative government, laissez faire capitalism, and the decadence they associated with modern culture. But rather than seeking to return to earlier ways of working these movements and regimes sought to design a new future – an alternative future – that would restore the nation to spiritual and political health. The Fascists, for their part, specifically promoted palingenesis, which is to say the spiritual rebirth of the nation. The book closes with a long epilogue, in which Ramet defends liberal democracy, highlighting its strengths and advantages. In this chapter, the author identifies five key choke points, which would-be authoritarians typically seek to control, subvert, or instrumentalize: electoral rules, the judiciary, the media, hate speech, and surveillance, and looks at the cases of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Jarosław Kaczyński’s Poland, and Donald Trump’s United States.

The Rebirth Constitution

The Rebirth Constitution
Author: Thomas Dahlberg
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9781484910207

The US Constitution of 1789 has been disobeyed from the outset because it could be. Its anti-democratic bias, its lack of democratic process, has made it impossible for the people to directly police their so-called "representatives," judges, and constitutional officers. None of them, contrary to what they so often suggest, are the champions of the objective truth. All human thought and action is tradition-bound. Because it was not specifically prohibited and sanctioned in the constitution of 1789, the government has monopolized the means of cultural production -- the schools, the universities, the welfare system, policy-making science, immigration, and the courts. It has leveraged this monopoly in its attempt to make its liberal, rationalist tradition the culturally dominant tradition and the dominant interpretation of the otherwise static text of the positive law -- including the constitution itself. The so-called "rule of law" is the rule of a dominant tradition. We must make it impossible for the government to unilaterally determine that tradition. Democracy is the private ownership and control of the means of cultural production. This must be asserted explicitly in our constitution if democracy is going to survive. We need a new postmodern constitution which rejects the modern liberal notion that the government can be rooted in universal standards of rational justification and universal principles of justice; that it can be tradition-neutral. Democracy is rooted in a whole web of belief about Reality, including the nature of man and therefore the nature of justice. The Rebirth Constitution recognizes the Christian foundations of real democracy, including the rejection of any official state religion and the separation of the state from every form of non-technical education. The western religious tradition is the foundation of all limits on the state. The state must have a tradition to administer justice. Paradoxically, that tradition must be one which, by its very nature, puts itself at risk by giving the people complete control over the means of cultural production. Without this popular control of the culture there is no liberty and there is no peace. This is what justifies the very same government's enforcement of the democratically derived law; its prohibition of sub-cultural law when such law violates the law written by the people and interpreted by the tradition they make dominant through competing private education and the election of their judges. The Rebirth Constitution is an explicitly postmodern, neopopulist artifact. It is a text that will please libertarians, but whose foundations are unquestionably post-liberal.

Suicide of the West

Suicide of the West
Author: Jonah Goldberg
Publisher: Crown Forum
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2020-01-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 110190495X

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An urgent argument that America and other democracies are in peril because they have lost the will to defend the values and institutions that sustain freedom and prosperity. Now updated with a new preface! “Epic and debate-shifting.”—David Brooks, New York Times Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle. As Americans we are doubly blessed, because the radical ideas that made the miracle possible were written not just into the Constitution but in our hearts, laying the groundwork for our uniquely prosperous society. Those ideas are: • Our rights come from God, not from the government. • The government belongs to us; we do not belong to it. • The individual is sovereign. We are all captains of our own souls, not bound by the circumstances of our birth. • The fruits of our labors belong to us. In the last few decades, these political virtues have been turned into vices. As we are increasingly taught to view our traditions as a system of oppression, exploitation, and privilege, the principles of liberty and the rule of law are under attack from left and right. For the West to survive, we must renew our sense of gratitude for what our civilization has given us and rediscover the ideals and habits of the heart that led us out of the bloody muck of the past—or back to the muck we will go.

Democracy's Rebirth

Democracy's Rebirth
Author: Dick Simpson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2022-04-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 025205329X

Dick Simpson draws upon his fifty-year career as a legislator, campaign strategist, and government advisor to examine the challenges confronting Americans in their struggle to build the United States as a multiracial, multiethnic democracy. Using Chicago as an example, Simpson examines how the political, racial, economic, and social inequalities dividing the nation play out in our neighborhoods and cities. His investigation of our current crisis and its causes delves into issues like money in politics, low voter participation, the politics of resentment, political corruption, and a host of structural problems. But Democracy’s Rebirth goes beyond analysis. Simpson lays out a sober, practical manifesto meant to inspire people everywhere to educate themselves and do the hard work of creating the kind of strong institutions that will allow true democracy to flourish. With a foreword by Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot.

The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties

The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties
Author: Bernard Tamas
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2018-03-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351128248

Virtually all academic books on American third parties in the last half-century assume that they have largely disappeared. This book challenges that orthodoxy by explaining the (temporary) decline of third parties, demonstrating through the latest evidence that they are enjoying a resurgence, and arguing that they are likely to once again play a significant role in American politics. The book is based on a wealth of data, including district-level results from US House of Representatives elections, state-level election laws after the Civil War, and recent district-level election results from Australia, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom.