Suchergebnisse

The Tulis thesis becomes even more powerful when the constitutional revolution he describes is put in its Progressive-Era context. The public had long demanded social reforms designed to curb or replace laissez-faire capitalism, which was seen as antithetical to the interests of ordinary working people. But popular demands for social reform went largely unmet until the 1910s. Democratizing political reforms, such as the rhetorical presidency, were designed to facilitate 'change' by finally giving the public the power to enact social reforms. The resulting political order has created systemic pressure for policy demagoguery in place of rational deliberation. Mass political mobilization seems to be better achieved by contests of grand principle that pit the well-meaning supporters of obviously needed reforms against 'villains and conspirators,' than by technical discussions of the possibly counterproductive effects of those reforms. Adapted from the source document.

"The Nature of Belief Systems" sets forth a Hobson's choice between rule by the politically ignorant masses & rule by the ideologically constrained -- which is to say, the doctrinaire -- elites. On the one hand, lacking comprehensive cognitive structures, such as ideological "belief systems," with which to understand politics, most people learn distressingly little about it. On the other hand, a spiral of conviction seems to make it difficult for the highly informed few to see any aspects of politics but those that confirm the cognitive structures that organize their political perceptions. This is a troubling situation for any consequentialist democratic political theory, according to which what is crucial is the electorate's (& subsidiary decision makers') ability to make informed policy judgments, not their possession of willful but uninformed political "attitudes." Any political theorist who does not take democracy to be an end in itself (regardless of its consequences) should be concerned about Converse's endings. Tables. Adapted from the source document.