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Beasts and gods : how democracy changed its meaning and lost its purpose
\"Democracy has failed to deliver. Equal opportunity and the individual's ability to influence decision-making are a mirage, while both new and established democracies suffer a growing sense of malaise. Analysing a variety of voting methods across twenty countries, Roslyn Fuller shows that modern democracies are not really democracies at all. The side with better funding invariably wins elections and referenda, and the party that forms the government rarely receives the majority of the popular vote. This lack of representation then compounds at the international level, as delegated power is delegated yet again. Arguing for a return to the ancient Athenian idea of democracy based on citizen participation, Beasts and Gods is an extraordinary work, set to reconfigure the foundations of modern society.\"--Page 4 of cover.
Book
The democratic problems with Washington as the capital
Democracy demands a capital city that represents a country and is not removed from it. If the government is to be of the people and for the people, then the capital must be able to relate to the people—and the people to the capital. In the United States, democracy struggles not just because of what happens outside of and comes to Washington, but because of what happens inside Washington. The federal government, in other words, faces democratic problems because of the type of place that Washington is. There are many factors to consider in deciding where a country should be governed from, but the ability of the capital to understand the country it governs is certainly one of the most important of these factors. The goal of this symposium article is to consider the contemporary democratic crisis in these geographical terms. Washington was initially a rural area meant to govern a rural country. It has gradually turned into a dynamic metropolitan area meant to govern a country featuring many—and many different—dynamic metropolitan areas. During its entire history, though, Washington has remained dominated by a single company: the federal government. A company town will struggle to attract and to cultivate the large range of people featured in the United States. Given that a company town struggles to satisfy the democratic demands of a capital, the question then becomes whether other types of places would better satisfy these democratic demands.
Journal Article
Setting the people free : the story of democracy
\"Why does democracy--as a word and as an idea--loom so large in the political imagination, though it has so often been misused and misunderstood? Setting the People Free starts by tracing the roots of democracy from an improvised remedy for a local Greek difficulty 2,500 years ago, through its near extinction, to its rebirth amid the struggles of the French Revolution. Celebrated political theorist John Dunn then charts the slow but insistent metamorphosis of democracy over the next 150 years and its apparently overwhelming triumph since 1945. He examines the differences and the extraordinary continuities that modern democratic states share with their Greek antecedents and explains why democracy evokes intellectual and moral scorn for some, and vital allegiance from others. Now with a new preface and conclusion that ground this landmark work firmly in the present, Setting the People Free is a unique and brilliant account of an extraordinary idea.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Designs on nature
Biology and politics have converged today across much of the industrialized world. Debates about genetically modified organisms, cloning, stem cells, animal patenting, and new reproductive technologies crowd media headlines and policy agendas. Less noticed, but no less important, are the rifts that have appeared among leading Western nations about the right way to govern innovation in genetics and biotechnology. These significant differences in law and policy, and in ethical analysis, may in a globalizing world act as obstacles to free trade, scientific inquiry, and shared understandings of human dignity.
eBook
Mapping and measuring deliberation : towards a new deliberative quality
Deliberative democracy has challenged two widely-accepted nostrums about democratic politics: that people lack the capacities for effective self-government; and that democratic procedures are arbitrary and do not reflect popular will; indeed, that the idea of popular will is itself illusory. On the contrary, deliberative democrats have shown that people are capable of being sophisticated, creative problem solvers, given the right opportunities in the right kinds of democratic institutions. 0But deliberative empirical research has its own problems. In this book two leading deliberative scholars review decades of that research and reveal three important issues. First, the concept 'deliberation' has been inflated so much as to lose empirical bite; second, deliberation has been equated with entire processes of which it is just one feature; and third, such processes are confused with democracy in a deliberative mode more generally. In other words, studies frequently apply micro-level tools and concepts to make macro- and meso-level judgements, and vice versa. 0Instead, Bachtiger and Parkinson argue that deliberation must be understood as contingent, performative, and distributed. They argue that deliberation needs to be disentangled from other communicative modes; that appropriate tools need to be deployed at the right level of analysis; and that scholars need to be clear about whether they are making additive judgements or summative ones. They then apply that understanding to set out a new agenda and new empirical tools for deliberative empirical scholarship at the micro, meso, and macro levels.
Book
What is a democracy?
What is a democracy? What do fairness and equality mean? How are leaders of a democracy chosen? Accessible text and explanatory photos help students understand the key concepts of how a democracy works.
Book
Action Research conceptualised in seven cornerstones as conditions for transforming education/Investigación-Acción conceptualizada en siete pilares como condiciones para transformar la educación
This article traces the philosophical and theoretical roots of Action Research to rescript its promise for site-based educational formation, reformation and transformation. The process of historicising Action Research through an extensive review of the extant literature, enabled us to establish seven cornerstones that captured the essence of the critical conditions: the practices and practice architectures, that give coherence and comprehensibility to Action Research as necessary for sustained and sustainable change in education. Framing these practices and practice architectures as cornerstones sets down important benefits for contemporary education requiring critical inquiry, rethought purposeful action and systematic responsive development. The cornerstones: contextuality, commitment, communication, collaboration, criticality, collegiality and community, were derived from viewing Action Research from its historical principle committed to democratic way of working. It is our position that the cornerstones account for, acknowledge and extend traditional perspectives and descriptions; and assist practitioners deepen understandings about the conditions necessary for opening up generative possibilities of Action Research in ways that do not neglect or lose sight of its core historical connections and democratic virtues. Keywords: Action Research, community, democracy, inquiry, practice architectures, site ontological Este artÃculo sigue las raÃces filosóficas y tóricas de la Investigación Acción para reescribir su promesa de una formación, una reforma y una transformación educativas situadas. El proceso de construir la historicidad de la Investigación Acción a través de una revisión extensiva de la investigación existente nos permitió establece siete claves que capturaron la esencia de las condiciones crÃticas: las prácticas y arquitecturas de la práctica, que dan coherencia y hacen comprensible la Investigación Acción son necesarias para el cambio continuo y sostenible en la educación. Enmarcar estas prácticas y arquitecturas de la práctica como claves trae importantes beneficios para la educación contemporánea que requiere investigación crÃtica, acción repensada y con sentido, y un desarrollo sistemático sensible. Las claves: contextualidad, compromiso, comunicación, colaboración, criticidad, colegialidad y comunidad, se derivaron desde la observación de la Investigación Acción desde su principio histórico comprometido con formas democráticas de trabajo. Nuestra posición es que las claves explican, reconocen y extienden perspectivas y descripciones clásicas; y ayudan a quienes realizan la práctica a profundizar su comprensión sobre las condiciones necesarias para abrir posibilidades generativas de Investigación Acción sin desatender o perder de vista sus conexiones históricas centrales y sus virtudes democráticas. Palabras clave: Investigación Acción, comunidad, democracia, investigación, arquitecturas delapráctica, ontologÃasituada
Journal Article
Democracy
\"A book for middle school students about the history of the democracy as a political system\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
