Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport write by Arthur Blaustein. This book was released on 2011-03-28. Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A blueprint and a guidebook to help us all get involved.Senator John...
The People Speak
The People Speak - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The People Speak write by Colin Firth. This book was released on 2013-08. The People Speak available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A powerful, inspiring and refreshing take on British history - spanning almost 1000 years and over 150 individual voices.
Democracy Disfigured
Democracy Disfigured - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Democracy Disfigured write by Nadia Urbinati. This book was released on 2014-02-25. Democracy Disfigured available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In Democracy Disfigured, Nadia Urbinati diagnoses the ills that beset the body politic in an age of hyper-partisanship and media monopolies and offers a spirited defense of the messy compromises and contentious outcomes that define democracy. Urbinati identifies three types of democratic disfiguration: the unpolitical, the populist, and the plebiscitarian. Each undermines a crucial division that a well-functioning democracy must preserve: the wall separating the free forum of public opinion from governmental institutions that enact the will of the people. Unpolitical democracy delegitimizes political opinion in favor of expertise. Populist democracy radically polarizes the public forum in which opinion is debated. And plebiscitary democracy overvalues the aesthetic and nonrational aspects of opinion. For Urbinati, democracy entails a permanent struggle to make visible the issues that citizens deem central to their lives. Opinion is thus a form of action as important as the mechanisms that organize votes and mobilize decisions. Urbinati focuses less on the overt enemies of democracy than on those who pose as its friends: technocrats wedded to procedure, demagogues who make glib appeals to "the people," and media operatives who, given their preference, would turn governance into a spectator sport and citizens into fans of opposing teams.
Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis
Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis write by Donatella della Porta. This book was released on 2015-05-04. Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Recent years have seen an enormous increase in protests across the world in which citizens have challenged what they see as a deterioration of democratic institutions and the very civil, political and social rights that form the basis of democratic life. Beginning with Iceland in 2008, and then forcefully in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece and Portugal, or more recently in Peru, Brazil, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine, people have taken to the streets against what they perceive as a rampant and dangerous corruption of democracy, with a distinct focus on inequality and suffering. This timely new book addresses the anti-austerity social movements of which these protests form part, mobilizing in the context of a crisis of neoliberalism. Donatella della Porta shows that, in order to understand their main facets in terms of social basis, strategy, and identity and organizational structures, we should look at the specific characteristics of the socioeconomic, cultural and political context in which they developed. The result is an important and insightful contribution to understanding a key issue of our times, which will be of interest to students and scholars of political and economic sociology, political science and social movement studies, as well as political activists.
Democracy and Political Ignorance
Democracy and Political Ignorance - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Democracy and Political Ignorance write by Ilya Somin. This book was released on 2013-10-02. Democracy and Political Ignorance available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
