On the Autonomy of the Democratic State

On the Autonomy of the Democratic State PDF Author: Eric A. Nordlinger
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674634091
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
On the Autonomy of the Democratic State challenges the assumption that elected and appointed public officials are consistently constrained by society in the making of public policy. Nordlinger demonstrates that the opposite is true and systematically identifies the state's many capacities and opportunities for enhancing its autonomy.

Democratic Autonomy

Democratic Autonomy PDF Author: Henry S. Richardson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195150919
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Book Description
Henry Richardson builds a convincing case for a qualified populism and for a strong form of deliberative democracy based on liberal and republican premises.

The Democratic State

The Democratic State PDF Author: Roger Benjamin
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700602623
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
One outcome of the declining economic growth and rising political conflict of the 1980s has been a renewed interest in political theory and increased questioning about the durability of the capitalist state. More and more political scientists are critically assessing the prevailing pluralist vision of the relationships between the state and the economy. Is the capitalist state able to adjust to crises and contradictions? What is the role of the state in changing—deteriorating—economic circumstances? How should we understand competing interpretations on the relative autonomy of the state, the nature of property rights, the legitimation crisis? This collection of five original essays by seven of the best-known political-economy theorists addresses the interconnections between the economy and the polity and embodies the leading theoretical approaches to the political economy of the state.

Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy

Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy PDF Author: Robert A. Dahl
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300173406
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Book Description
“Continuing his career-long exploration of modern democracy, Dahl addresses a question that has long vexed students of political theory: the place of independent organizations, associations, or special interest groups within the democratic state.”—The Wilson Quarterly “There is probably no greater expert today on the subject of democratic theory than Dahl….His proposal for an ultimate adoption here of a ‘decentralized socialist economy,’ a system primarily of worker ownership and control of economic production, is daring but rational, reflecting his view that economic inequality seems destined to become the major issue here it historically has been in Europe.”—Library Journal “Dahl reaffirms his commitment to pluralist democracy while attempting to come to terms with some of its defects.”—Laura Greyson, Worldview “Anyone who is interested in these issues and who makes the effort the book requires will come away the better for it. And more. He will receive an explanation for our current difficulties that differs considerably from the explanation for our current difficulties that differs considerably from the explanation offered by the Reagan administration, and a prescription for the future which differs fundamentally from the nostrums emanating from the White House.”—Dennis Carrigan, The (Louisville, Kentucky) Courier-Journal

The Evolution of Political Knowledge

The Evolution of Political Knowledge PDF Author: American Political Science Association. Annual Meeting
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
ISBN: 0814209343
Category : Political science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
Over the course of the last century, political scientists have been moved by two principal purposes. First, they have sought to understand and explain political phenomena in a way that is both theoretically and empirically grounded. Second, they have analyzed matters of enduring public interest, whether in terms of public policy and political action, fidelity between principle and practice in the organization and conduct of government, or the conditions of freedom, whether of citizens or of states. Many of the central advances made in the field have been prompted by a desire to improve both the quality and our understanding of political life. Nowhere is this tendency more apparent than in research on comparative politics and international relations, fields in which concerns for the public interest have stimulated various important insights. This volume systematically analyzes the major developments within the fields of comparative politics and international relations over the past three decades. Each chapter is composed of a core paper that addresses the major puzzles, conversations, and debates that have attended major areas of concern and inquiry within the discipline. These papers examine and evaluate the intellectual evolution and natural history of major areas of political inquiry and chart particularly promising trajectories, puzzles, and concerns for future work. Each core paper is accompanied by a set of shorter commentaries that engage the issues it takes up, thus contributing to an ongoing and lively dialogue among key figures in the field.

The Self-restraining State

The Self-restraining State PDF Author: Andreas Schedler
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ISBN: 9781555877743
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Book Description
This text states that democratic governments must be accountable to the electorate; but they must also be subject to restraint and oversight by other public agencies. The state must control itself. This text explores how new democracies can achieve this goal.

Personal Autonomy in Society

Personal Autonomy in Society PDF Author: Marina Oshana
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351911953
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
People are socially situated amid complex relations with other people and are bound by interpersonal frameworks having significant influence upon their lives. These facts have implications for their autonomy. Challenging many of the currently accepted conceptions of autonomy and of how autonomy is valued, Oshana develops a 'social-relational' account of autonomy, or self-governance, as a condition of persons that is largely constituted by a person’s relations with other people and by the absence of certain social relations. She denies that command over one's motives and the freedom to realize one's will are sufficient to secure the kind of command over one's life that autonomy requires, and argues against psychological, procedural, and content neutral accounts of autonomy. Oshana embraces the idea that her account is 'perfectionist' in a sense, and argues that ultimately our commitment to autonomy is defeasible, but she maintains that a social-relational account best captures what we value about autonomy and best serves the various ends for which the concept of autonomy is employed.

From Open Secrets to Secret Voting

From Open Secrets to Secret Voting PDF Author: Isabela Mares
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 131630079X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
The expansion of suffrage and the introduction of elections are momentous political changes that represent only the first steps in the process of democratization. In the absence of institutions that protect the electoral autonomy of voters against a range of actors who seek to influence voting decisions, political rights can be just hollow promises. This book examines the adoption of electoral reforms that protected the autonomy of voters during elections and sought to minimize undue electoral influences over decisions made at the ballot box. Empirically, it focuses on the adoption of reforms protecting electoral secrecy in Imperial Germany during the period between 1870 and 1912. Empirically, the book provides a micro-historical analysis of the democratization of electoral practices, by showing how changes in district level economic and political conditions contributed to the formation of an encompassing political coalition supporting the adoption of electoral reforms.

Technocracy and Democracy in Latin America

Technocracy and Democracy in Latin America PDF Author: Eduardo Dargent
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107059879
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
Praised by some as islands of efficiency in a sea of unprofessional, politicized, and corrupt states, and criticized by others for removing wide areas of policy making from the democratic arena, technocrats have become prominent and controversial actors in Latin American politics. Through an in-depth analysis of economic and health policy in Colombia from 1958 to 2011 and in Peru from 1980 to 2011, Technocracy and Democracy in Latin America explains the source of these experts' power as well as the leverage they have across state policy sectors in Latin America.

The Time of Popular Sovereignty

The Time of Popular Sovereignty PDF Author: Paulina Ochoa Espejo
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027107454X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
Democracy is usually conceived as based on self-rule or rule by the people, and it is this which is taken to ground the legitimacy of the democratic form of government. But who constitutes the people? Democratic political theory has a potentially fatal weakness at its core unless it can answer this question satisfactorily. In The Time of Popular Sovereignty, Paulina Ochoa Espejo examines the problems the concept of the people raises for liberal democratic theory, constitutional theory, and critical theory. She argues that to solve these problems, the people cannot be conceived as simply a collection of individuals. Rather, the people should be seen as a series of events, an ongoing process unfolding in time. She then offers a new theory of democratic peoplehood, laying the foundations for a new theory of democratic legitimacy.