Suchergebnisse

"Democracy should enable citizens to play an informed role in determining how power is exercised for their common wellbeing, but this only works if people have the understanding, skills and confidence to engage effectively in public affairs. Otherwise, any voting system can be subverted to serve the interests of propagandists and demagogues. This book brings together leading experts on learning for democracy to explore why and how the gap in civic competence should be bridged. Drawing on research findings and case examples from the UK, the US and elsewhere, it will set out why change is necessary, what could be taught differently to ensure effective political engagement, and how a lasting impact in improving citizens' learning for democratic participation can be made."--

Chapter 1. The Roots of Communitarian Ideas -- Chapter 2. The Emergence of Communitarian Challenges: 1400s-1600s. Chapter 3. Towards Enlightened Communities: the 18th century -- Chapter 4. Beyond Gemeinschaft & Gesellschaft: 19th to early 20th century -- Chapter 5. Critiques of Depersonalisation: 1920s-1980s -- Chapter 6. Communitarianism Articulated: 1989-2001 -- Chapter 7. Tackling Community Disempowerment post-2001 -- Chapter 8. Tomorrow's Communities

To govern ourselves or not to? This is the existential question of politics. With the rise of distrust, alienation, and extremism, it is all the more difficult to secure democratic self-rule when neither those in power nor the general public seem dependable when it comes to making decisions that can transform our lives, for better or worse. In the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges, Henry Tam explores what should be done to revive democracy. Presenting in a clear and accessible manner, he goes beyond the familiar 'get the vote out' ideas, to set out 9 key areas where reforms are necessary to ensure we can govern ourselves more effectively. Against the suggestion that democracy has run its course, this book unpacks why democratic governance is indispensable and puts forward forty recommendations to help us avoid the twin threats of oppressive rule and debilitating chaos

Although Communitarianism has a long history, it is only recently that it has emerged to pose a major challenge to the traditional left-right divide in politics and the competing principles of individualism and collectivism. Henry Tam's book provides a broad-ranging and accessible introduction to communitarian ideas and their implications for politics and citizenship drawing on a wide range of international examples and engaging with communitarianism's critics to demonstrate clearly its relevance beyond the United States base of many of its major protagonists

Henry Tam casts a critical eye over the Coalition's 'Big Society' policy agenda and sees in it not a platform for citizen engagement and localised service provision but a barely concealed 'small state' agenda, with more in common with the Thatcherite politics of the 1980s than David Cameron and Conservatives might admit.

This paper examines two closely related empirical hypotheses: an economic Kuznets curve and a political Kuznets curve. We find a robust inverted-U relationship between income inequality and political development, but not one between income inequality and economic development. Exploring the cross-section aspect of the panel data, we find that the economic Kuznets curve is sensitive to different control specifications and to different functional specifications, but the political Kuznets curve is robust. Using dynamic panel data estimation, we find that the economic Kuznets curve does not hold up intertemporally while the political Kuznets curve does. Adapted from the source document.