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A powerful case for democracy and how it can adapt and survive-if we want it toIs democracy in trouble, perhaps even dying? Pundits say so, and polls show that most Americans believe that their country s system of governance is being tested or is under attack. But is the future of democracy necessarily so dire? In The Civic Bargain, Brook Manville and Josiah Ober push back against the prevailing pessimism about the fate of democracy around the world. Instead of an epitaph for democracy, they offer a guide for democratic renewal, calling on citizens to recommit to a civic bargain with one another to guarantee civic rights of freedom, equality, and dignity. That bargain also requires them to fulfill the duties of democratic citizenship: governing themselves with no boss except one another, embracing compromise, treating each other as civic friends, and investing in civic education for each rising generation.Manville and Ober trace the long progression toward self-government through four key moments in democracy s history: Classical Athens, Republican Rome, Great Britain s constitutional monarchy, and America s founding. Comparing what worked and what failed in each case, they draw out lessons for how modern democracies can survive and thrive. Manville and Ober show that democracy isn t about getting everything we want; it s about agreeing on a shared framework for pursuing our often conflicting aims. Crucially, citizens need to be able to compromise, and must not treat one another as political enemies. And we must accept imperfection; democracy is never finished but evolves and renews itself continually. As long as the civic bargain is maintained-through deliberation, bargaining, and compromise-democracy will live

"A powerful case for democracy and how it can adapt and survive-if we want if toIs democracy in trouble, perhaps even dying? Pundits say so, and polls show that most Americans believe that their country's system of governance is being "tested" or is "under attack." But is the future of democracy necessarily so dire? In The Civic Bargain, Brook Manville and Josiah Ober push back against the prevailing pessimism about the fate of democracy around the world. Instead of an epitaph for democracy, they offer a guide for democratic renewal, calling on citizens to recommit to a "civic bargain" with one another to guarantee civic rights of freedom, equality, and dignity. That bargain also requires them to fulfill the duties of democratic citizenship: governing themselves with no "boss" except one another, embracing compromise, treating each other as civic friends, and investing in civic education for each rising generation.Manville and Ober trace the long progression toward self-government through four key moments in democracy's history: Classical Athens, Republican Rome, Great Britain's constitutional monarchy, and America's founding. Comparing what worked and what failed in each case, they draw out lessons for how modern democracies can survive and thrive. Manville and Ober show that democracy isn't about getting everything we want; it's about agreeing on a shared framework for pursuing our often conflicting aims. Crucially, citizens need to be able to compromise, and must not treat one another as political enemies. And we must accept imperfection; democracy is never finished but evolves and renews itself continually. As long as the civic bargain is maintained-through deliberation, bargaining, and compromise-democracy will live"--

Opposing the tendency to read Thucydides as a strong realist, committed to a theory of behaviour that assumes rationality as expected utility maximization, Ned Lebow and Clifford Orwin (among others) emphasize Thucydides' attentiveness to deviations from rationality by individuals and states. This paper argues that Thucydides grasped the principles underlying contemporary prospect theory, which explains why people over-weight small probabilities and under-weight near certain ones. Thucydides offers salient examples of excessive risk-aversion in the face of probable gains and excessive risk-seeking by decision-makers faced with high probability losses. Thucydides suggests that in a democracy, leaders' rhetoric can limit or exacerbate the political effects of bias in risk assessment.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART I: Morally Evolved: Primate Social Instincts, Human Morality, and the Rise and Fall of "Veneer Theory" -- Appendix A: Anthropomorphism and Anthropodenial -- Appendix B: Do Apes Have a Theory of Mind? -- Appendix C: Animal Rights -- PART II: Comments -- The Uses of Anthropomorphism -- Morality and the Distinctiveness of Human Action -- Ethics and Evolution: How to Get Here from There -- Morality, Reason, and the Rights of Animals -- PART III: Response to Commentators -- The Tower of Morality -- References -- Contributors -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y -- Z