Book Description
Shows that current elitist theories are based on an inadequate understanding of the early writings of democratic theory and that much sociological evidence has been ignored.
Book Description
How do liberal democracies produce citizens who are capable of governing themselves? In considering this question, Barbara Cruikshank rethinks central topics in political theory, including the relationship between welfare and citizenship, democracy and despotism, and subjectivity and subjection. Drawing on theories of power and the creation of subjects, Cruikshank argues that individuals in a democracy are made into self-governing citizens through the small-scale and everyday practices of voluntary associations, reform movements, and social service programs. She argues that our empowerment is a measure of our subjection rather than of our autonomy from power. Through a close examination of several contemporary American "technologies of citizenship"--from welfare rights struggles to philanthropic self-help schemes to the organized promotion of self-esteem awareness--she demonstrates how social mobilization reshapes the political in ways largely unrecognized in democratic theory. Although the impact of a given reform movement may be minor, the techniques it develops for creating citizens far extend the reach of govermental authority. Combining a detailed knowledge of social policy and practice with insights from poststructural and feminist theory, The Will to Empower shows how democratic citizens and the political are continually recreated.
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Democracy and Democratization
Geraint Parry
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Democracy
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ASIN: 0415090504 |
Book Description
This timely collection examines questions of central concern to scholars and practitioners of politics. It looks at both the concept of democracy and the process of democratization, combining theoretical chapters by historians of ideas and political theorists, with empirical chapters on the process of democratization in Eastern Europe, China, The Middle East and Latin America, as well as in established democracies such as Britain and France. Coverage includes chapters on: Procrustean and Promethean paths to popular self-rule; education and democracy; democracy and Marxism; democratization and qualified explanation Case studies of: Eastern Europe; China; Latin America; Middle East; France; Britain; editors' conclusions.
Book Description
Conventional wisdom suggests that citizens in many countries have become disengaged from traditional political participation. Commentators highlight warning signs of sagging electoral turnout, rising anti-party sentiment, and the decay of civic organizations. But are these concerns justified? This book compares systematic evidence in nearly two hundred countries worldwide and suggests reasons for questioning assumptions of decline. Not only is the obituary for older forms of political activism premature, but new forms of modern civic engagement may be emerging.
Book Description
"George Marcus deserves thanks and praise for reminding us that emotional communication and arousal are the life-blood of politics. Leaders who ignore the primacy of voters' feelings are doomed to failure. Voters and political scientists who imagine that politics is a question of purely `rational choice' are bound to be astonished by what actually happens. To gain a better understanding of how our emotions shape contemporary politics, this volume is must reading." —Roger D. Masters, Dartmouth College
This book challenges the conventional wisdom that improving democratic politics requires keeping emotion out of it. Marcus advances the provocative claim that the tradition in democratic theory of treating emotion and reason as hostile opposites is misguided and leads contemporary theorists to misdiagnose the current state of American democracy. Instead of viewing the presence of emotion in politics as a failure of rationality and therefore as a failure of citizenship, Marcus argues, democratic theorists need to understand that emotions are in fact a prerequisite for the exercise of reason and thus essential for rational democratic deliberation and political judgment. Attempts to purge emotion from public life not only are destined to fail, but ultimately would rob democracies of a key source of revitalization and change.
Drawing on recent research in neuroscience, Marcus shows how emotion functions generally and what role it plays in politics. In contrast to the traditional view of emotion as a form of agitation associated with belief, neuroscience reveals it to be generated by brain systems that operate largely outside of awareness. Two of these systems, "disposition" and "surveillance," are especially important in enabling emotions to produce habits, which often serve a positive function in democratic societies. But anxiety, also a preconscious emotion, is crucial to democratic politics as well because it can inhibit or disable habits and thus clear a space for the conscious use of reason and deliberation. If we acknowledge how emotion facilitates reason and is "cooperatively entangled" with it. Marcus concludes, then we should recognize sentimental citizens as the only citizens really capable of exercising political judgment and of putting their decisions into action.
Customer Reviews:
To Be A Responsible Citizen.......2003-05-30
I found this book on the new arrivals shelf of our university library. It turned out to be so thought-provoking that I read it with great interest in order to grasp the critical questions and illuminating answers posed by George E. Marcus as to how to be a responsible citizen in democratic politics.
The greatness of this book is that Marcus has successfully pointed out the pitfalls associated with the 'rational choice' theory in approaching the relations between citizen and politics. To be an attentive and responsible citizen, as he convincingly argues, one needs to have emotion, passion, and sentiment to make rational calculations and move forward in democratic politics.
The most important parts of the books are Chapter 5 'The Uses of Habit and Enthusiasm,' Chapter 6 'The Uses of Anxiety,' and Chapter 7 'the Dangers of Loathing. In these chapters, drawing on research in neuroscience, Marcus succinctly explores and examines both good and down sides of emotions, as compared to reason and rationality, in democratic politics.
After you finish reading this book, you will, as I did, understand that emotion and reason are not mutually exclusive and hostile opposites; they are in fact helping and working with each other in breeding a population of good and responsible citizens.
Book Description
The decade of the 1980s marked a triumph for market capitalism. As politicians of all stripes sought to reinvent government in the image of private enterprise, they looked to the voluntary sector for allies to assuage the human costs of reductions in public policies of social welfare. This book details the "savage side" of market capitalism in Appalachia and explains the social, political, and economic roles that mediating structures play in mitigating it. Profiling the work of twenty-three such mediating structures—community-based organizations that battled to provide social safety nets, fight environmental assaults, and upgrade the education and job skills of Appalachian residents—Richard Couto distills the practical lessons to be found in their successes and shortcomings.
Couto argues that a broader set of democratic dimensions be used in taking the measure of civil society and public policy in the twenty-first century. He shows that mediating structures promote the democratic prospect of reduced inequality and increased communal bonds when they provide and advocate for new forms and increased amounts of social capital—the public goods and moral resources that we invest in one another as members of a community.
Customer Reviews:
community mediation is essentail for problem-solving.......2007-05-09
Dr. Couto says, "Mediating structures are a prerequisite to democracy. They preserve the liberty of citizens to act on public matters apart form government. They permit their members representation and participation in the sociopolitical arrangements of the neighborhood, community. nation, or state....The test for the democratic nature of mediating structures involves the stringent test of all three elements--liberty, equality, and political action--not only one of the three." With examples drawn from the Appalachia region, community social capital, in his view, are often adequate to meet local decision-making and problem-solving needs, but must be supplemented by outside resources to ensure adequate long-term solutions.
Civil Society and Democracy Need Government Resources.......2001-07-14
This book furthers the general understanding of social capital, civil society, democracy, nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and, to a limited extent, philanthropy.
A primary contribution of this book is a resurrection and development of a different conception of social capital than what Robert Putnam has articulated. Couto elaborates on Robert A. Nisbet's 1962 conception of social capital as including a material base as well as the moral or value base about which Putnam writes.
According to Couto, "Nisbet relates the failure of intermediate associations (family, community, church, and the whole network of informal interpersonal relationships) to provide the psychological and symbolic functions of social capital -- that is, its moral element -- directly to their diminished capacity to perform the material and economic functions of social capital" (identified as "mutual aid, welfare, education, recreation, and economic production and distribution") (p.53).
Borrowing also on Julian Wolpert, Couto says, "People have different amounts of social capital depending on the actual or potential resources, the size of the network to which they are linked, and the amount of economic and cultural capital the members of that network have." And citing Pierre Bourdieu, Couto adds, "Social capital is never independent of the other forms of capital..." (p.62).
The book then proceeds to narrate the stories of 23 community-based "mediating structures" in Appalachia and discuss how they contribute to social capital, civil society and democracy from a regional economic base that is among the poorest in the country.
At first blush, this seems to contradict the theory above. How can this economically impoverished area produce mediating structures that can succeed in adding to social capital (both moral and material)?
And how do the mediating structures promote democracy?
Recognizing that Nisbet, Wolpert and Bourdieu are correct, nevertheless, Couto demonstrates that increases in social capital and democracy are possible through the interventions of mediating structures even in the most economically devastated and politically corrupt areas of our country.
These Appalachian mediating structures ranged from very local organizations -- such as Dungannon Development Commission (VA), Brumley Gap Concerned Citizens (VA) and Bumpass Cove Citizens Group (TN) -- to statewide and regional organizations -- such as West Virginia Primary Care Association, Virginia Black Lung Association and Southern Empowerment Project (TN). They were organized to deal with economic development, environment, health, families and children, housing, human resources, culture and the arts, organizational and leadership development, and broad public policy.
A key factor in the mediating structures' successes (though not all the nonprofit organizations were successful in everything they conceived or undertook) was the ability of the organizations to extract material assistance from local, regional, state and federal governments and occasionally from for-profit businesses.
Sometimes they developed non-controversial partnerships with governments and businesses to add to the material basis of their communities. Sometimes they undertook controversial direct action to challenge unfair corporate or government policies. And sometimes organizations did both. Couto maintains that the dichotomy between "community development" -- which is usually non-controversial partnering -- and "community organizing" -- which is often associated with controversial direct action -- is a false one when considering the activities and achievements of these 23 Appalachian mediating structures.
Viewing these Appalachian nonprofit organizations from another perspective, many of them delivered services to their constituencies. Many advocated for changes in public policies at both the bureaucratic and the legislative levels. And many did both. Couto demonstrates through his narratives about the 23 organizations that the services and advocacy dichotomy is just as false as the community organizing-community development one.
Couto says, "Community-based mediating structures spend a considerable portion of their effort mitigating the worst consequences of a market economy predicated on rugged individualism and unadaptive capitalism. (They) promote the democratic prospect in places where public social welfare policies are most desperately needed" (p.299).
They promote democracy by building self-esteem in individuals who are often patronized for their poverty, illiteracy and poor health. They promote democracy by teasing out larger visions of how the world could be better against a backdrop of corporate rapaciousness and governmental indifference. They deliver services to their members and others in the community which help recruit people to participate in collective action. They promote democracy by organizing the individuals and their visions into collective action -- whether it be community development or direct action. Even when they fail, or when they succeed then fall apart, they promote democracy by having built self-esteem, enabled vision, and gave birth to concepts of collective action, community development and direct action which frequently translate into new organizations and action that are frequently more effective than the earlier incarnations. Everyone who participated in these Appalachian mediating structures was more aware of the possibilities -- and difficulties -- of democracy after their participation.
But at the same time, Couto suggests that these "mediating structures only supplement efforts to redress market failures." (p. 300) They might provide some help in alleviating the problems associated with workers' injuries or stopping the constant destruction of the enviroment by the coal companies, but they cannot make up for the short supply of public goods and services that might provide full recompense for such situations.
Nevertheless, the rich histories of these community-based organizations in Couto's book demonstrate a complex set of political, social and economic roles. In their political roles, the community-based organizations assist their members and their communities to discover the historical, social and economic origins of their conditions and to develop methods of redress. In their social roles, the organizations create the networks that Putnam and others suggest are critical to building social capital. Finally, in their economic roles, the organizations "weave government programs into these networks far more than limited-government advocates understand." (p.299)
While social theorists portray these local organizations as defenses against government intrusion, which they are, they do more than that by leveraging government money to provide goods and services otherwise in short supply, an essential ingredient to their organizational members and communities to both create and expand key social capital networks.
Robert Bothwell is President Emeritus/Senior Fellow of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Washington, DC, USA
The essence of grassroot democracy.......2000-01-02
As the title indicates, this work builds upon (but independant from) Robert Putnum's "Making Democracy Work." In a book both approprate for univeristy level study and laymen alike, Couto presents the subject in three parts. First, Couto provides a well versed lesson in the civic sphere and mediating structures. The middle provides a virtual overkill of sucessfull mediating structures as examples. These examples help the reader understand that the civic sphere isn't some intangable ideal discussed by high-minded professor types, but rather a vital active (and very real) aspect of democracy. The examples lead the reader into the third part where Couto argues that a true and healthy democracy can only be achieved through citizen participation.
Couto focuses upon the central and southern Applachian regions in this work. He shows that if these people historically oppressed by industrial greed, political corruptness and belittling cultural sterotypes can stand up to the tide of Corporate globalism and demand demorcatic justice, then everybody can also. Couto doesn't break new ground, but rather expands upon this very important subject. These are issues addressed by Tocqueville and expanded upon by many great minds since then. Couto has futhered the intellectual pursuit of this concept.
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Citizen Competence and Democratic Institutions
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Civil Rights & Liberties
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Civics
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Democracy
| Government
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General
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Emigration & Immigration
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ASIN: 0271018178 |
Book Description
All over the United States, Americans are deserting the political process. Why? In this national bestseller, one of our shrewdest political observers traces thirty years of volatile political history and finds that on point after point, liberals and conservatives are framing issues as a series of "false choices," making it impossible for politicians to solve problems, and alienating voters in the process. Now with a new afterword discussing the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings and the 1992 presidential election, Dionne explores what has gone wrong with the American system and offers a back-to-basics approach to politics designed to respond to the anger of America's restive majority.
Customer Reviews:
An Iconic Survey of America's Political Landscape (or Lack Thereof).......2006-03-04
I came across this book about a year ago, if that, at my local public library. Dionne's piercing analysis opened my eyes to the answer, or beginnings of an answer, to a question that had been so residual in my mind.
Looking at the publication date, I was taken aback. The book is so relevant, and it was originally introduced to the market in 1992.
But that's a footnote. Dionne's thesis is simple, yet brilliantly incisive: American political "apathy" is only apparent; the hostility among most people toward 'politics' and, especially, 'politicians' can be explained, he writes, toward the "false choices" provided by our ineffective two-party system.
So, instead of energy and solidarity, we are seeing (and have been seeing for many years, as Dionne indicates) paralysis, stagnation and a 'polarized' climate that denies a third way.
Read it.
Challenge your political allegiances.......2005-04-03
I like bold books that make bold statements. "Why Americans Hate Politics" opens swinging for the fences, saying accurately that the New Left elected Reagan. And when the book isn't speaking difficult truths, its articulating things clearly that you've probably sensed before. This book traces American Politics from the 60s to 91, outlining the major shifts in ideologies and how they are represented in the political parties. The way it displays these sometimes dramatic shifts could be the books highest value. To see the words "liberal" and "Republican" next to each other feels bizarre, though it shouldn't, and people where described as such not long ago. "Why Americans..." argues essentially there was an insurgency in the Democratic Party in the 60s that split the centrist New Deal consensus. While there were inherently some contradictions in that consensus, the Vietnam War exacerbated the split. At the same time, a conservative coalition emerged, thanks in large part to William Buckley's National Review and the candidacy of Barry Goldwater, that was able to unite two former democratic flanks, namely the libertarian/internationalist neo-conservatives and the traditional/religious populists. The cause of anti-communism solidified that coalition. In turn, the Democratic Party was caught trying to balance the radicals of the sixties and the New Dealers from the past. The two sides have battled it out ever since.
Most importantly and refreshingly, Dionne takes both sides seriously and at their word. For example, he is eloquent in pointing out that and that most religious conservatives don't want to delegitimize other's faiths or force others to their own, they just don't like being mocked as dupes. Further, conservatives are foolish when they dismiss the 60s as being merely a radical frenzy. Our current attitudes of equality and opportunity, that no one serious would dissent from, were fought for in that era and those victories must be acknowledged. Both parties have had successes and mistakes, and could learn from each other.
There are a few problems with the book, however. At one point it seemed as if Dionne couldn't decide whether the South became Republican because of demographic and economic changes, or because it is simply anti-civil rights. I also think that he succumbs to impulse (like Thomas Friedman) that says everyone is mostly right and we just need to compromise toward the middle. Compromise is of value, but it's not the highest value. But overall it is a great book displaying how unnatural coalitions in our two party system make politics about symbolism rather than substance. The fight against terrorism will act like anticommunism in that it will continue to hold the conservative coalition together while it will put liberals into a bind when trying to articulate their strategies in that fight. But these schisms are on the horizon and must be dealt with. Then, hopefully, we can put the war of symbols aside. But I'm not holding my breath.
Great Reading!.......2004-07-21
Facinating reading on the evolution of political thought through the last thirty years of the 20th Century. If you have an interest in politics and economics and are the least bit curious about ideas it can't be beat. When you finish you should follow up with "They Only Look Dead" which, sort of, takes up where this book leaves off. Dionne is a great writer and a solid thinker.
Interesting.......2004-03-16
This books is any easy read, but it covers the subject well. The author explains the ways that political parties have evolved in the last 20 years and demonstrates why Americans feel less connection with the political process.
Confirmed by the passage of time............2002-12-27
I originally purchased and read "Why Americans Hate Politics" shortly after it was published. Recently, I came across the book in my library and read it again.
Few modern-day books and in depth analyses manage to weather the test of time. Mr. Dionne's thesis, to his credit, is further affirmed in its accuracy just four days short of 2003. This achievement is only diminished by the frustration of knowing that we've sunken much deeper into this morass of "ideological polarization" vis a vis liberalism and conservatism as it affects today's political climate in the U.S.
Mr. Dionne could hardly have predicted the proliferation of cable networks with their steady diet of disciples from both sides pummeling the viewer 24 hours a day. Neither could he have imagined the depths to which politicos, think tanks, and special interest groups would plunge as this "polarization" continues to feed upon itself some 12 years later.
"Why Americans Hate Politics" should be on every required reading list in our colleges and universities as well as among engaged and concerned citizens in the United States - especially given current events.
Book Description
Most democratic citizens today are distrustful of politicians, political parties, and political institutions. Where once democracies expected an allegiant public, citizens now question the very pillars of representative democracy. Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices documents the erosion of political support in virtually all advanced industrial democracies. Assembling an unprecedented array of cross-national public opinion data, this study traces the current challenges to democracy primary to changing citizen values and rising expectations. These critical citizens are concentrated among the young, the better educated, and the politically sophisticated. At the same time, the evidence debunks claims that such trends are a function of scandals, poor performance, and other government failures. Changing public are born from the successful social modernization of these nations. A creedal passion for democracy is sweeping across the Western democracies, and people now expect more of their governments. This study concludes by examining the consequences of these changing images of government. The author finds that these expectations are making governing more difficult, but also fueling demands for political reform. The choices that democracies make in response to these challenges may lead to a further expansion of the democratic process and a new relationship between citizens and their government
Books:
- Paul Revere's Ride
- Policing and Special Units (Prentice Hall Policing and ... Series.)
- Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal (6th Edition)
- Politics of Congressional Elections (Longman Classics Series), The (6th Edition) (Longman Classics Series)
- Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues
- Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present
- Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present
- Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion)
- Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy
- Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan
Books Index
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