Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Why Democracy? -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION: Posing the Question -- 1. "The Fountainhead of Justice"? -- 2. Democracy: Communitarian, Participatory, or Radical? -- 3. Deliberative Democracy -- 4. A Modest Phenomenology of Democratic Speech -- 5. Why Democracy? -- 6. Between the Market and the Forum -- Conclusion and Prognosis -- NOTES -- INDEX -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.

Political parties have lost swathes of members and effective power is ever more concentrated in the hands of their leaders. Behind these trends lie changing relationships between economics, the media and politics. Electoral spending has spiralled out of all control, with powerful economic interests exercising undue influence. The 'level playing field', on which democracy's contests have supposedly been fought, has become ever more sloping and uneven. In many 'democratic' countries media coverage, especially that of television, is heavily biased. Electors become viewers and active participation

Intro -- Table of Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Democracy and Its Discontents -- Notes -- 3. Feminist Reflections on Representative Democracy -- Introduction -- Defining democracy -- The biases of democratic citizenship -- The treatment of women as individuals -- Slow change: the presence of women in democratic politics -- Substantive representation: women's policy agendas -- Discussion: the masculine bias of political institutions -- Conclusions -- Notes -- 4. Why is Democracy so Surprising? -- 5. Constitutional Reform: Death, Rebirth and Renewal -- I -- II -- III -- Notes -- 6. Three Types of Majority Rule -- A UK trio: 2010, 2015, 2017 -- What is so good about majority rule? -- The Westminster system -- Double majority government -- The issue-by-issue majority -- Second chambers -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 7. Rethinking Political Communication -- The problem and the question -- Communication, party and people -- The form of the content -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 8. Protecting Democratic Legitimacy in a Digital Age -- Notes -- 9. Rethinking Democracy with Social Media -- What do we know? The value of small things -- Scaling up-or not -- Losing control of democracy -- Democratic grief -- Examining the evidence for the death of democracy -- Taking back control? Building transparency and accountability back into democracy -- Stabilising democracy in the social media age -- Notes -- 10. Post-Democracy and Populism -- Why the popularity of xenophobic populism? -- Populism as a problem -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 11. Relating and Responding to the Politics of Resentment -- Introduction -- The imperfect foundations of politics -- Class, identity and politics -- Politics and competence -- The politics of resentment -- Finding a new political vehicle: a radical devolution? -- Conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- Notes

"For years, intellectuals have argued that, with the triumph of capitalist, liberal democracy, the Western World has reached "the end of history." Recently, however, there has been a rise of authoritarian politics in many countries. Concepts of post-democracy, anti-politics, and the like are gaining currency in theoretical and political debate. Now that capitalist democracies are facing seismic and systemic challenges, it becomes increasingly important to investigate not only the inherent antagonism between liberalism and the democratic process, but also socialism. Is socialism an enemy of democracy? Could socialism develop, expand, even enhance democracy?While this volume seeks a reappraisal of existing liberal democracy today, its main goal is to help lay the foundation for new visions and practices in developing a real socialist democracy. Amid the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism today, the responsibility to sort out the relationship between socialism and democracy has never been greater. No revival of socialist politics in the twenty-first century can occur without founding new democratic institutions and practices."--Publisher's description

This textbook brings together an introduction to the political theory of democracy since Ancient times and a critical picture of its place in Britain today. The author examines the work of Plato and Aristotle, Rousseau and Mill, Marx and Weber, and locates them and others in the debate about what democracy means. He then scrutinises Britain's claim to be a developing democracy, from the power of the Prime Minister and the role of political parties to the influence of pressure groups and the media, as well as recent constitutional changes.In the context of declining public trust in political in

Despite lacking any sort of military advantage over the regimes they have confronted, the Iranian people have never been dissuaded from rising against and challenging varying forms of injustice. Through the successful implementation of non-violent action Iranians have overcome the violence of successive governments by undermining their moral and political legitimacy. But more than a hundred years after the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, Iranians are still in search of a social covenant through which they can acquire and practice public freedom. The stakes are extremely high, if Iran fails to end its culture of violence as a state and society then it risks its future as a stable, democratic state. So how then can the Iranian people break the cycle of violent and oppressive regimes and start looking towards a non-violent and democratic future? There is no magic formula that will immediately end violence in Iran but this book argues that by shunning violence and showing a readiness to face down persecution that the Iranian people have a chance to secure their freedom.