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When does democracy work well, and why? Is democracy the best form of government? These questions are of supreme importance today as the United States seeks to promote its democratic values abroad. Democracy and Knowledge is the first book to look to ancient Athens to explain how and why directly democratic government by the people produces wealth, power, and security. Combining a history of Athens with contemporary theories of collective action and rational choice developed by economists and political scientists, Josiah Ober examines Athenian democracy's unique contribution to the ancient Greek city-state's remarkable success, and demonstrates the valuable lessons Athenian political practices hold for us today. He argues that the key to Athens's success lay in how the city-state managed and organized the aggregation and distribution of knowledge among its citizens. Ober explores the institutional contexts of democratic knowledge management, including the use of social networks for collecting information, publicity for building common knowledge, and open access for lowering transaction costs. He explains why a government's attempt to dam the flow of information makes democracy stumble. Democratic participation and deliberation consume state resources and social energy. Yet as Ober shows, the benefits of a well-designed democracy far outweigh its costs. Understanding how democracy can lead to prosperity and security is among the most pressing political challenges of modern times. Democracy and Knowledge reveals how ancient Greek politics can help us transcend the democratic dilemmas that confront the world today.

A digital copy of "Democracy's Infrastructure" by Antina von Schnitzler. Download is immediately available upon purchase!

Grades 4-5

Was there opera - and just what was it like - in New York City before the advent of the Metropolitan Opera Company?In exploring these questions, Karen Ahlquist describes the social, cultural, economic, and esthetic factors that led to the assimilation of Italian opera - a complex, expensive genre of elitist reputation - into New York's business oriented community, with its English cultural heritage and sacred republican traditions.In her lively description of opera as few today can imagine it, Ahlquist considers Jacksonian-era efforts to create a polite social setting, the influence of a socially based clash between "respectability" and broad public access, and the role of music in shaping, not just reflecting, social and cultural life.

Format Paperback Subject Literary Collections Publisher Literary Licensing LLC

"Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?"In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of democracy, along with its critical weaknesses, and reconceive the practice to accommodate new political and cultural realities. Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while Wendy Brown discusses the democratization of society under neoliberalism. Jean-Luc Nancy measures the difference between democracy as a form of rule and as a human end, and Jacques Rancière highlights its egalitarian nature. Kristin Ross identifies hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and Slavoj Zizek complicates the distinction between those who desire to own the state and those who wish to do without it.Concentrating on the classical roots of democracy and its changing meaning over time and within different contexts, these essays uniquely defend what is left of the left-wing tradition after the fall of Soviet communism. They confront disincentives to active democratic participation that have caused voter turnout to decline in western countries, and they address electoral indifference by invoking and reviving the tradition of citizen involvement. Passionately written and theoretically rich, this collection speaks to all facets of modern political and democratic debate.

A leading American legal scholar offers a surprising account of the incompleteness of prevailing theories of freedom of speech. Robert C. Post shows that the familiar understanding of the First Amendment, which stresses the “marketplace of ideas” and which holds that "everyone is entitled to an opinion," is inadequate to create and preserve the expert knowledge that is necessary for a modern democracy to thrive. For a modern society reliably to answer such questions as whether nicotine causes cancer, the free and open exchange of ideas must be complemented by standards of scientific competence and practice that are both hierarchical and judgmental.Post develops a theory of First Amendment rights that seeks to explain both the need for the free formation of public opinion and the need for the distribution and creation of expertise. Along the way he offers a new and useful account of constitutional doctrines of academic freedom. These doctrines depend both upon free expression and the necessity of the kinds of professional judgment that universities exercise when they grant or deny tenure, or that professional journals exercise when they accept or reject submissions.

At a time when politics and virtue seem less compatible than oil and water, Democracy and Moral Development shows how to bring the two together. Philosopher David Norton applies classical concepts of virtue to the premises of modern democracy. The centerpiece of the book is a model of organizational management applicable to the state, business, the professions, and voluntary communities.

Democracy or Republic?: The People and the Constitution 0.9

New Book. Shipped From Uk. This Book Is Printed On Demand. Established Seller Since 2000.

Is declining trust in government and in other citizens bad for democracy? Bringing together social science and political theory, this book analyzes the relationship between democracy and trust. Trust can develop where interests converge, but in politics interests conflict. Democracy includes a healthy distrust of the interests of the powerful, and institutionalizes it by providing opportunities for citizens to oversee them. Yet democratic institutions depend on a trust among citizens sufficient for representation, resistance, and alternative forms of governance. Leading scholars explore this paradoxical relationship.

Reprint of the first English-language edition. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville [1805-1859] and Gustave de Beaumont [fl.1835] were sent to the United States by the French government to study American prisons, which were renowned for their progressive and humane methods. They were pleased to accept this assignment because they were intrigued by the idea of American democracy. Tocqueville and Beaumont spent nine months in the country, traveling as far west as Michigan and as far south as New Orleans. Throughout the tour, Tocqueville used his social connections to arrange meetings with several prominent and influential thinkers of the day. He recorded his thoughts on the structure of the government and the judicial system, and commented on everyday people and the nation's political culture and social institutions. His observations on slavery, in particular, are impassioned and critical. These notes formed the basis of Democracy in America. This landmark work initiated a dialogue about the nature of democracy and the United States and its people that continues to this day. Originally published: New York: Adlard and Saunders, 1838. xxx, 464 pp.

Democracy in Latin America, Third Edition, examines processes of democratization in Latin America from 1900 to the present. Thoroughly revised and expanded, this new edition provides a widespread view of political transformation throughout the entire region.Adroitly blending qualitative and quantitative approaches, Democracy in Latin America, Third Edition, offers an innovative view of the "dialectic" of democratic change in Latin America. This interpretation draws upon new material concerning the rise of the "new Left," the relationship between social status and satisfaction with democracy, the effectiveness of antipoverty policies, changing roles of the judiciary, and the impact of the international environment. The text is enhanced by the inclusion of numerous photographic illustrations and brief "boxes" with portraits of personalities, explanations about methodology, and comments on conceptual approaches.

The defect, Sandel maintains, lies in the impoverished vision of citizenship and community shared by Democrats and Republicans alike. American politics has lost its civic voice, leaving both liberals and conservatives unable to inspire the sense of community and civic engagement that self-government requires. In search of a public philosophy adequate to our time, Sandel ranges across the American political experience, recalling the arguments of Jefferson and Hamilton, Lincoln and Douglas, Holmes and Brandeis, FDR and Reagan. He relates epic debates over slavery and industrial capitalism to contemporary controversies over the welfare state, religion, abortion, gay rights, and hate speech. Democracy's Discontent provides a new interpretation of the American political and constitutional tradition that offers hope of rejuvenating our civic life.

The defect, Sandel maintains, lies in the impoverished vision of citizenship and community shared by Democrats and Republicans alike. American politics has lost its civic voice, leaving both liberals and conservatives unable to inspire the sense of community and civic engagement that self-government requires.In search of a public philosophy adequate to our time, Sandel ranges across the American political experience, recalling the arguments of Jefferson and Hamilton, Lincoln and Douglas, Holmes and Brandeis, FDR and Reagan. He relates epic debates over slavery and industrial capitalism to contemporary controversies over the welfare state, religion, abortion, gay rights, and hate speech. Democracy's Discontent provides a new interpretation of the American political and constitutional tradition that offers hope of rejuvenating our civic life.

Tocqueville's view that a virtuous and viable democracy depends on robust associational life has become a cornerstone of contemporary democratic theory. Democratic theorists generally agree that issue networks, recreational associations, support circles, religious groups, unions, advocacy groups, and myriad other kinds of associations enhance democracy by cultivating citizenship, promoting public deliberation, providing voice and representation, and enabling varied forms of governance. Yet there has been little work to show how and why different kinds of association have different effects on democracy--many supportive but others minimal or even destructive.This book offers the first systematic assessment of what associations do and don't do for democracy. Mark Warren explains how and when associational life expands the domain, inclusiveness, and authenticity of democracy. He looks at which associations are most likely to foster individuals' capacities for democratic citizenship, provoke political debate, open existing institutions, guide market activities, or bring democratic decision-making to new venues. Throughout, Warren also considers the trade-offs involved, noting, for example, that organizational solidarity can dampen internal dissent and deliberation even as it enhances public deliberation. Blending political and social theory with an eye to social science, Democracy and Association will draw social scientists with interests in democracy, political philosophers, students of public policy, as well as the many activists who fortify the varied landscape we call civil society. As an original analysis of which associational soils yield vigorous democracies, the book will have a major impact on democratic theory and empirical research.

Sandler and Schoenbrod tell how the courts, with the best intentions and often with the approval of elected officials, came to control ordinary policy making through decrees. These court regimes, they assert, impose rigid and often ancient detailed plans that prove ineffective and wasteful. Elected officials cannot respond to changing realities unless attorneys, court-appointed functionaries, and lower-echelon officials agree. The result is neither judicial government nor good government, say Sandler and Schoenbrod, and they offer practical reforms that would set governments free from this stranglehold and allow courts to do their legitimate job of protecting rights.

Based on interviews with camp survivors and new archival research, an account of the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II offers a new perspective on a tragic episode in contemporary American history. 30,000 first printing. Tour.