Doing Democracy

Book Description

Citizen activism has achieved many positive results. But the road to success for social movements is often complex, usually lasting many years, with few guides for evaluating the precise stage of a movement's evolution to determine the best way forward.

Doing Democracy provides both a theory and working model for understanding and analyzing social movements, ensuring that they are successful in the long term. Beginning with an overview of social movement theory and the MAP (Movement Action Plan) model, Doing Democracy outlines the eight stages of social movements, the four roles of activists, and case studies from the civil rights, anti-nuclear energy, Central America, gay/lesbian, women's health, and globalization movements.

Customer Reviews:

If you are a social activist, please read this book.......2005-08-16

As a long time activist in drug policy reform and criminal justice reform, I have been aware that many of the movement leaders and the grass roots activists really don't know what they are doing. They know the facts of the issue, and they know that they need to get Congress and the state legislatures to change the laws, but they have an undeveloped and uninformed view of how to achieve the changes they are working for. Many of them don't realize that building a grass roots movement is essential. And many of those who know they are trying to mobilize a majority, aren't aware that their messages or tactics can often be counter-productive. This book brings a great deal of wisdom and clarity.

This easy-to-read book can help break down the confusion within the movement about the necessary, different roles people need to fill. Read this book and learn that different approaches are necessary to complement each other. This, hopefully, will minimize the uninformed arguments about strategy that we have engaged in. The lessons of this book lay the groundwork for fruitful discussions of what we can and should be doing.

This book provides a very valuable analysis of the stages that movements go through, on the way to success. The case histories teach, among other things, that the stages can overlap.

This book is grounded in the tradition of nonviolent social action. It is remains idealistic in the best sense, and is not cynical.

Eric E. Sterling
Criminal Justice Policy Foundation

Extraordinary Strategic/Tactical Guide for People Power.......2004-01-21

This book is both a strategic orientation to, and a tactical primer on, how to develop and manage non-violent social movements at the grassroots or "people power" level.

The reason this book is important is because it solves the most important problem or gap facing all social movements: the lack of strategic models and methods that help activists understand, plan, conduct, and evaluate their social movements. I have read this book from cover to cover and it fulfills the objective. Had Howard Dean and Joe Trippi read this book six months ago, they would not have blown the lead and come in a sorry fourth (less than half of what Kerry had, less than a quarter Kerry and Edwards combined), to guys that did *not* figure out MoveOn.org and the Internet as a collective consciousness tool.

This is among the most heavily marked up books I have read in the past four years, and instead of summarizing it in detail, which may cause some of you to avoid buying it, I will simply endorse the primary author's view that social movements are needed now more than ever, for the simple reason that the powerholders are making life on the planet unsustainable--everything they do (think Dick Cheney here) to increase profits, control, and power, is also "increasing unemployment, the gap between rich and poor, violence, ecological collapse, and unsustainability".

There are four aspects of the book that are especially valuable as we all find ourselves in a "world war" between fundamentalist groups (both Islamic and extremist Americans of the religious right falling prey to neo-conservative doctrine) and progressive individuals seeking the common good:

1) the author's focus on sub-movements, on creating a strategic campaign that specifically embraces each sub-movement as a distinct but coordinated element, is the "aha" factor in leaping forward.

2) the author's specific discussion of negative rebels and how much harm they can do to the larger movement is compelling, to the point of actually suggesting that we need to create a counterintelligence service within social movements to address this. The few violent protesters in Seattle got all the media coverage, and the non-violent mass lost a great deal of credit.

3) the eight-stages of social movements are extremely detailed and the case studies help to explain why the "slump" must be overcome in the fifth stage, when success has been achieved but there is a perception of failure.

4) the importance of having an economic strategy for where the social movement's vision needs to go, is not understood by most presidential candidates. This book is valuable to anyone who would be president, or senator, for it explains not only how to organize and lead a social movement, but how to govern resources to its desired ends after the fact of victory. Real world budgeting is a neglected aspect of leadership during the electoral process.

I would say that this book (together with Tom Atlee's "The Tao of Democracy: Using CO-INTELLIGENCE to create a world that works for all"), is core reading for anyone interested in saving his or her neighborhood, his or her country, or the world at large. The primary and secondary authors are also to be commended for making the point that it is possible to be effective *regardless of who is President or what party is in charge in the capitol*--they emphasize local grass-roots effectiveness that is non-partisan.

Juliette Beck and Nancy Gregory make contributions that should have been acknowledged on the cover. Juliette Beck especially, with her focus on globalization and the sub-movements and stages of the aggregate movement, provides a most satisfactory case study that concludes the book.

Excellent -- How to really DO Democracy!.......2001-09-14

If you want to make the world a better place, buy this book.

Based on his years of experience, Bill Moyer knows how to design effective nonviolent social change movements that can challenge entrenched power, overcome resistance, and implement positive alternatives. Moyer explains how grassroots democracy really works and shows how to build powerful change movements that uphold widely held values like honesty, democracy, fairness, compassion, and protection of the envionment. He also shows how conventional politics meshes with grassroots organizing.

The section on how Moyer's ideas fit in with the sociology and polictical science literature is easy to read and interesting. The current scholarly literature on social change movements is quite meager and Moyer's model makes a big contribution to change theory.

Finally, the examples at the end of the book are enlightening and heartening.

Book Description

This is a book for all researchers in educational settings whose research is motivated by considerations of justice, fairness and equity. It addresses questions such researchers have to face. Will a prior political or ethical commitment bias the research? How far can the ideas of empowerment or 'giving a voice' be realised? How can researchers who research communities to which they belong deal with the ethical issues of being both insider and outsider?

The book provides a set of principles for doing educational research for social justice. These are rooted in considerations of methodology, epistemology and power relations, and provide a framework for dealing with the practical issues of collaboration, ethics, bias, empowerment, voice, uncertain knowledge and reflexivity, at all stages of research from getting started to dissemination and taking responsibility as members of the wider community of educational researchers.

Theoretical arguments and the realities of practical research are brought together and interwoven. Thus the book will be helpful to all researchers, whether they are just beginning their first project, or whether they are already highly experienced. It will be of great value to research students in designing and writing up their theses and dissertations.

Ordinary people doing the extraordinary: The story of Ed and Joyce Koupal and the Initiative process

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Ordinary people doing the extraordinary: The story of Ed and Joyce Koupal and the Initiative process
Dwayne Hunn
Manufacturer: People's Lobby
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 0971723990

Politics Lost: From RFK to W: How Politicians Have Become Less Courageous and More Interested in Keeping Power than in Doing What's Right for America

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American Presidential Politics as Train Wreck, Engineered by Pollsters and Consultants
Joe Klein Proves in this BOOK, we need something NEW
We Are As We Vote?
Worth Checking Out
Poorly Thought Out Book

Politics Lost: From RFK to W: How Politicians Have Become Less Courageous and More Interested in Keeping Power than in Doing What's Right for America
Joe Klein
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Democracy | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Elections | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Practical Politics | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

U.S. | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0767916018
Release Date: 2007-06-19

Book Description

People on the right are furious. People on the left are livid. And the center isn’t holding. There is only one thing on which almost everyone agrees: there is something very wrong in Washington. The country is being run by pollsters. Few politicians are able to win the voters’ trust. Blame abounds and personal responsibility is nowhere to be found. There is a cynicism in Washington that appalls those in every state, red or blue. The question is: Why? The more urgent question is: What can be done about it?
Few people are more qualified to deal with both questions than Joe Klein.
There are many loud and opinionated voices on the political scene, but no one sees or writes with the clarity that this respected observer brings to the table. He has spent a lifetime enmeshed in politics, studying its nuances, its quirks, and its decline. He is as angry and fed up as the rest of us, so he has decided to do something about it—in these pages, he vents, reconstructs, deconstructs, and reveals how and why our leaders are less interested in leading than they are in the “permanent campaign” that political life has become.
The book opens with a stirring anecdote from the night of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Klein re-creates the scene of Robert Kennedy’s appearance in a black neighborhood in Indianapolis, where he gave a gut-wrenching, poetic speech that showed respect for the audience, imparted dignity to all who listened, and quelled a potential riot. Appearing against the wishes of his security team, it was one of the last truly courageous and spontaneous acts by an American politician—and it is no accident that Klein connects courage to spontaneity. From there, Klein begins his analysis—campaign by campaign—of how things went wrong. From the McGovern campaign polling techniques to Roger Ailes’s combative strategy for Nixon; from Reagan’s reinvention of the Republican Party to Lee Atwater’s equally brilliant reinvention of behind-the-scenes strategizing; from Jimmy Carter to George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton to George W.—as well as inside looks at the losing sides—we see how the Democrats become diffuse and frightened, how the system becomes unbalanced, and how politics becomes less and less about ideology and more and more about how to gain and keep power. By the end of one of the most dismal political runs in history—Kerry’s 2004 campaign for president—we understand how such traits as courage, spontaneity, and leadership have disappeared from our political landscape.
In a fascinating final chapter, the author refuses to give easy answers since the push for easy answers has long been part of the problem. But he does give thoughtful solutions that just may get us out of this mess—especially if any of the 2008 candidates happen to be paying attention.

Customer Reviews:

American Presidential Politics as Train Wreck, Engineered by Pollsters and Consultants.......2007-08-31

By Joe Klein's reckoning, the greatest scourge of political consultants in the past three decades has been the elimination of Turnip Days - and he may well be right. The peculiar name of this lost element of politics arises from the candicacy of Harry Truman in 1948. At his Democratic Party acceptance speech where he was challenging a do-nothing Republican Congress to reconvene on July 25, President Truman alluded to a Missouri tradition of planting turnips that day, rain or shine. According to Klein, it was a speech straight out of the man, loaded with words and references to Truman's own down-home roots. A genuine, non-scripted, non-manufactured moment in which America saw their President as the man he really was, warts and all. We've hardly had a Turnip Day moment since, and in Klein's view, it's been the ruination of American politics and the cause of horrendous candidacies (Gephardt, Doukakis, Kerry) and equally horrendous Presidencies (Carter, both Bushes, even parts of Reagan and Clinton).

In its basic structure, POLITICS LOST is a history, a chronological retracing of American politics from Jimmy Carter to the 2004 Bush/Kerry election, with particular emphasis on pollsters and political consultants. In Klein's view, this new breed of unelected unknowns have evolved from advisors and strategists to incessant surveyors, focus group holders, and message and candidate micro-managers battling with near-paranoid fervor to suppress anything smacking of reality and spontaneity. As the author retraces successive Presidential election campaigns from Carter/Ford to Bush/Kerry, he introduces us to the little Oz-wizards pulling the strings from behind the curtains. Everything begins with pollster Pat Caddell. After that, it's Richard Wirthlin, John Sears, Bob Teeter, David Doak, Bob Shrum, Mark McKinnon, Dick Morris, James Carville, Ed Rollins, Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes, Joe Trippi, and a host of others. Even to readers for whom those names are already familiar, the stories are simultaneously fascinating and disturbing. Democrats and Repbublicans alike should feel a deep sense of shame over what their leaders have wrought in the last thirty years - hardly "democracy" as the Founding Fathers imagined it.

Klein's negative attitude toward professional political consultancy picks up steam in his writing as he progresses chronologically, and justifiably so. By the turn of the millennium, Presidential political campaigns have become a national disgrace, a black mark on the entire concept of democracy. Candidacies are manufactured for emotion and appearance, devoid of substance and content, and the most telling moments in the last three elections have been gaffes or negative ads and attacks. Not surprisingly, the American electorate increasingly elects not to participate, as if a trip to the voting booth means pointlessly soiling one's hands in the whole nasty business. One of the conjectures in POLITICS LOST is that the entire process increases the likelihood that the country will end up with ineffectual Presidencies. From Carter to Reagan to Bush I to Clinton to Bush II, this certainly seems to be the case (with Clinton being the only pause in this steep slide into the intellectual and effectiveness abyss).

In the book's final pages, Mr. Klein practically begs some future candidate to break this cycle and present himself or herself as just a normal human being. Say what you think and mean what you say; don't hide behind pages of polls and empty, feel-good, focus group-tested slogans. The author may indeed be onto something, judging at least in the Democratic candidates' case by people's continued collective unease with Hillary Clinton and their early surge of enthusiasm for Barack Obama (who appears to be less fresh and more scripted as time passes). As Klein might have it with regard to the so-called political pros, "a pox on all your houses." POLITICS LOST is a fascinating survey of recent Presidential campaign history and a worthwhile read for what it says about our leaders, our political processes, our democracy, and ourselves.

Joe Klein Proves in this BOOK, we need something NEW.......2007-08-25

This book is boring in that there are no SOLUTIONS. Plenty of spotlight on the Problems. Like George W. Bush. The biggest problem in a leader we've ever suffered in our entire history. The man never once has done anything that helps ordinary citizens. He blocked Stem Cell research claiming that he knows for certain that no benefit, no cures would ever come from it. Laura even joined him on that, and she should know better, she has read a book.

So, all of the books on politics right now are very bereft of solutions.

But, there is a website where you can find Real Solutions to our problems. [...]

Here, they are starting the 2nd American Revolution and when you think about it, that's what is really necessary. We need a new revolution because they have such absolute control over the media and the rest of us, it's impossible to get any thing fixed. They have a stranglehold on us. But the folks who started the 1st National Voting Block actually have something NEW and PRACTICAL to offer. Check them out. Tell them Amazon them sent you.

We Are As We Vote?.......2007-04-06

Guess what America, you are "STUPID." How Dare I? Well look at what is going on around us. People in Washington like the fact we do not get the real news, and the "Fat Cat" media owners are rewarded, the government looks the other way, and the media does what it wants. Oh sure you say Janet Jackson's strip tease makes one think otherwise. "Smoke And Mirrors".

How then are we stupid? We continue to elect "Career Politicians" who no longer so much as read the laws they are voting for. Worse big business now taylors laws to suit themselves, or they write them all together. Guess what not a peep out of the American people. And what do we do? Why re-elect them of course.

Campaigns are taylored to what you want to hear and that which tends to garner the most bucks. What a joke. George W. Bush, and his group of "Gangsters" stole two presidential elections, with hardly a peep out of we the citizens, or the sleepy heads on Capital Hill. And the beat goes on. Who knows how many other elections will be fraudulent. Who knows which elected offical will put his hand in the cookie jar, and do the American public in.

Maybe we should get Fidel Castro to send some observers to America, to ensure our next presidential election is honest. "Stupid" seems too mild a word. Politicians do look at us the American public as if we are stupid, because we seem to have lost our voice. Their campaigns are only designed to attack one another, not to address the issues. Such as poverty, homelessness, poor education, lack of health care, and big business trying to make us all jobless. We have a war going on on the other side of the world, where our young men and women are dying. Meanwhile the "Cowboy" in the white House has told every lie under the sun to continue killing our young men, and women in uniform. Guess what, hardly a call for "Impeachment", neither on Capital Hill, or from the people. But a former president lies about his personal life and this becomes grounds for Impeachment. No one lost his life here people.

What we call Democracy is long dead, and this book reveals a few reasons why. The career politician, has to rank as number one. Judges for life is number two. Number two is a very hard one to change because if we allow todays politician to fiddle with our Constitution, who knows they may outlaw your religious beliefs or something. Third and formost how about a voter referendum to limit what the government steals from you each payday. Next get rid of these "Career Politicians". One six year term and they are out. And no these people cannot hold either an elected, or politically appointed position for ten years thereafter. Oops.

This is a good book with all the lies and deception coming from Capital Hill, I wish something of this nature was standard reading in our schools to make people aware of what is happening, and what is at stake. FREEDOM, because we spend too, too much time on computer games, or looking for what Britney Spears is doing, to be troubled about what is really going on in our government. Get involved America.

Worth Checking Out.......2007-03-09

This is an interesting book. Anyone who is interested in an alternative to the right wing talk radio and tv news should seriously consider checking out the Thom Hartmann radio show opposite Rush Limbaugh weekdays at: thomhartmann dot com / showlisten.shtml

Whether democrat, republican, or indepedent, so many of the facts out there are completely ignored by the mainstream media and talk shows. This show is one strong example of an examination of the facts regardless of your political affiliation.

Poorly Thought Out Book.......2007-01-23

Politics Lost is a poorly thought out book. It purports to be a stunning muckraking work, yet it is nothing more than a critigue of the aesthetics of power in Washington.

Critics such as Klein have long seen advertising as being a negative force in politics at least since the Eisenhower campaign hired an advertising agency in 1952. Klein claims that since the Nixon campaign of 1968, politics have become nothing more than slickly packaged advertisements.

Klein's book is really nothing more than the same old, same old.

The Young United States, 1783-1830: A Time of Change and Growth, a Time of Learning Democracy, a Time of New Ways of Living, Thinking, and Doing

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Not to be missed

The Young United States, 1783-1830: A Time of Change and Growth, a Time of Learning Democracy, a Time of New Ways of Living, Thinking, and Doing
Edwin Tunis
Manufacturer: Ty Crowell Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0690010656

Customer Reviews:

Not to be missed.......2003-01-18

This volume in Tunis's trilogy of social histories (the others are "Colonial Living" and "Frontier Living") focuses on an era that tends not to be as closely studied by most people as are the Revolutionary era and the 19th Century, which means that books about it are thin on the ground. But if, by some chance, it's one of your interests, "The Young United States" is a book you must definitely add to your collection. With Tunis's trademark highly detailed pen-and-ink illo's and clear, well-written commentary, it provides an excellent overview of how all levels of society lived during the 40-odd years under consideration. I found it indispensable in determining how the father of one of my fictional characters--a veteran of the War of 1812--would have grown up and what his surroundings would have been like in Federal America. Adult researchers should not fail to consult it.

Doing democracy.(Women's International League for Peace and Freedom)(Brief Article): An article from: Peace and Freedom

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Doing democracy.(Women's International League for Peace and Freedom)(Brief Article): An article from: Peace and Freedom

Manufacturer: Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Peace and Freedom, published by Women's International League for Peace and Freedom on June 22, 2002. The length of the article is 648 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Doing democracy.(Women's International League for Peace and Freedom)(Brief Article)
Publication: Peace and Freedom (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2002
Publisher: Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Volume: 62 Issue: 3 Page: 14(1)

Article Type: Brief Article

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On democracy: we cannot hold the government accountable if we don't know what it's doing.: An article from: The Other Side

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On democracy: we cannot hold the government accountable if we don't know what it's doing.: An article from: The Other Side
Arthur Waskow
Manufacturer: The Other Side
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Other Side, published by The Other Side on July 1, 2004. The length of the article is 3247 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: On democracy: we cannot hold the government accountable if we don't know what it's doing.
Author: Arthur Waskow
Publication: The Other Side (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2004
Publisher: The Other Side
Volume: 40 Issue: 4 Page: 11(5)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

This supplement includes additional teaching ideas, background information and bibliographies of additional resources.

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