Category: Democracy

By Shawn Casey O'Brien

What might ensue if forty million disabled voters equipped their vote and took energy in the US? Shawn Casey O'Brien's literary memoir For the affection Of lengthy pictures appears to be like on the off-beat, humane percentages as a rag tag workforce of disabled rebels lay the foundation for simply this type of cold, democratic revolution. From motivating thousands to sign up and vote, to finishing voter suppression and wholeheartedly encouraging the citizens to "lie to the polls" after which easily vote their judgment of right and wrong, For the affection Of lengthy pictures takes an irreverent, if no longer lifelike, examine what ails American democracy this day and the way most sensible to save lots of it-one disabled vote at a time.

By Samuel Farber

During this paintings a political scientist seeks to supply a jargon-free advent to the marketplace approach, for all readers without or with a historical past in economics. He assesses the nature, ideas, merits and shortcomings of the establishment co-ordinating smooth monetary and social lifestyles.

By Zygmunt Bauman, Carlo Bordoni

At the present time we pay attention a lot speak of concern and comparisons are frequently made with the nice melancholy of the Thirties, yet there's a the most important distinction that units our present malaise except the Nineteen Thirties: this present day we not belief within the skill of the kingdom to unravel the hindrance and to chart a brand new method ahead. In our more and more globalized global, states were stripped of a lot in their strength to form the process occasions. a lot of our difficulties are globally produced however the quantity of strength on the disposal of person geographical regions seriously is not adequate to deal with the issues they face. This divorce among strength and politics produces a brand new form of paralysis. It undermines the political organization that's had to take on the drawback and it saps citizens’ trust that governments can carry on their delivers. The impotence of governments is going hand in hand with the becoming cynicism and mistrust of voters. consequently the present obstacle is instantly a quandary of employer, a quandary of consultant democracy and a quandary of the sovereignty of the state.

In this publication the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow visitor Carlo Bordoni discover the social and political dimensions of the present trouble. whereas this trouble has been tremendously exacerbated by way of the turmoil following the monetary problem of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the challenge dealing with Western societies is rooted in a way more profound sequence of adjustments that extend again additional in time and are generating long-lasting effects.

This hugely unique research of our present drawback through of the world’s best social thinkers may be of curiosity to a large readership.

The debatable thesis on the heart of this examine is that, regardless of the significance of slavery in Athenian society, the main targeted attribute of Athenian democracy used to be the remarkable prominence it gave to loose hard work. wooden argues that the emergence of the peasant as citizen, juridically and politically self sustaining, money owed for a lot that's extraordinary in Athenian political associations and tradition.

From a survey of historic writings of the eighteenth and 19th centuries, the focal point of which distorted later debates, wooden is going directly to take factor with influential arguments, similar to these of G.E.M. de Ste Croix, concerning the value of slavery in agricultural construction. The social, political and cultural effect of the peasant-citizen is explored in a manner which questions probably the most loved conventions of Marxist and non-Marxist historiography.

By Heidi Boghosian

By Timothy Mitchell

Does oil wealth result in political poverty? It frequently seems to be that method, yet Carbon Democracy tells a extra complicated tale. during this magisterial research, Timothy Mitchell rethinks the heritage of strength, bringing into his seize as he does so environmental politics, the fight for democracy, and where of the center East within the glossy world. 

With the increase of coal strength, the manufacturers who oversaw its construction obtained the facility to close down strength platforms, a probability they used to construct the 1st mass democracies. Oil provided the West an alternate, and with it got here a brand new kind of politics. Oil created a denatured political lifestyles whose primary item – the financial system – seemed in a position to countless progress. What used to be a Western democracy depending on an undemocratic center East. We now dwell with the implications: an impoverished political perform, incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to finish the age of carbon democracy – specifically, the disappearance of inexpensive power and the carbon-fueled cave in of the ecological order.

By William Blum

By Henry Mintzberg

Enough of the imbalance that's inflicting the degradation of our surroundings, the loss of life of our democracies, and the denigration of ourselves. adequate of the pendulum politics of left and correct and paralysis within the political heart. We require an extraordinary kind of radical renewal. during this ebook Henry Mintzberg bargains a brand new realizing of the foundation of our present challenge and a technique for restoring the stability so very important to the survival of our progeny and our planet.

With the cave in of the communist regimes of jap Europe, Western pundits declared that capitalism had triumphed. They have been wrong—balance triumphed. A healthy society balances a public quarter of revered governments, a personal area of liable companies, and a plural area of strong groups. Communism collapsed below the load of its overbearing public sector.

Now the “liberal democracies” are threatened—socially, politically, even economically—by the unchecked excesses of the personal sector.

Radical renewal should start within the plural region, which on my own has the inclination and the independence to problem unacceptable practices and advance greater ones. Too many governments were co-opted by way of the non-public region. and company social accountability cannot make amends for the company social irresponsibility we see round us “They” will not do it. We shall need to do it, each one folks and we all, no longer as passive “human resources,” yet as inventive human beings.

Tom Paine wrote in 1776, “We have it in our energy to start internationally again.” He was once correct then. do we be correct back now? do we manage to pay for to not be?