Understanding Liberal Democracy PDF Download

Author: Nicholas Wolterstorff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191654957
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Understanding Liberal Democracy presents notable work by Nicholas Wolterstorff at the intersection between political philosophy and religion. Alongside his influential earlier essays, it includes nine new essays in which Wolterstorff develops original lines of argument and stakes out novel positions regarding the nature of liberal democracy, human rights, and political authority. Taken together, these positions are an attractive alternative to the so-called public reason liberalism defended by thinkers such as John Rawls. The volume will be of interest to philosophers, political theorists, and theologians, engaging a wide audience of those interested in how best to understand the nature of liberal democracy and its relation to religion.

Author: Nicholas Wolterstorff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199558957
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
This volume presents influential work by Nicholas Wolterstorff at the intersection between political philosophy and religion, alongside nine new essays on the nature of liberal democracy, human rights, and political authority. These novel essays offer an attractive alternative to the public reason liberalism defended by thinkers such as John Rawls.

Author: Barry Holden
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
This comprehensive introductory text examines the meaning and history of basic concepts such as "democracy", "liberal democracy", "liberty" and "equality" and how they are related. Different forms and theories of democracy and the justifications and prospects for liberal democracy are discussed.

Author: Max Meyer
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030474089
Category : Comparative government
Languages : en
Pages : 77

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Book Description
This open access book aims to show which factors have been decisive in the rise of successful countries. Never before have so many people been so well off. However, prosperity is not a law of nature; it has to be worked for. A liberal economy stands at the forefront of this success - not as a political system, but as a set of economic rules promoting competition, which in turn leads to innovation, research and enormous productivity. Sustainable prosperity is built on a foundation of freedom, equal opportunity and a functioning government. This requires a stable democracy that cannot be defeated by an autocrat. Autocrats claim that "illiberalism" is more efficient, an assertion that justifies their own power. Although autocrats can efficiently guide the first steps out of poverty, once a certain level of prosperity has been achieved, people begin to demand a sense of well-being - freedom and codetermination. Only when this is possible will they feel comfortable, and progress will continue. Respect for human rights is crucial. The rules of the free market do not lean to either the right or left politically. Liberalism and the welfare state are not mutually exclusive. The "conflict" concerns the amount of government intervention. Should there be more or less? As a lawyer, entrepreneur, and board member with over 40 years of experience in this field of conflict, the author clearly describes the conditions necessary for a country to maintain its position at the top.

Author: David M. Elcott
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268200599
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy. In Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, David Elcott, C. Colt Anderson, Tobias Cremer, and Volker Haarmann present a pragmatic and modernist exploration of how religion engages in the public square. Elcott and his co-authors are concerned about the ways religious identity is being used to foster the exclusion of individuals and communities from citizenship, political representation, and a role in determining public policy. They examine the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. Included is a history and political analysis of religion, politics, and policies in Europe and the United States that foster this illiberal rebellion. The authors explore what constitutes a constructive religious voice in the political arena, even in nurturing patriotism and democracy, and what undermines and threatens liberal democracies. To lay the groundwork for a religious response, the book offers chapters showing how Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism can nourish liberal democracy. The authors encourage people of faith to promote foundational support for the institutions and values of the democratic enterprise from within their own religious traditions and to stand against the hostility and cruelty that historically have resulted when religious zealotry and state power combine. Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, as well as for scholars of political science, religion, and democracy.

Author: Adrian Pabst
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509528482
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
Liberals blame the global retreat of liberal democracy on globalisation and authoritarian leaders. Only liberalism, so they assume, can defend democratic rule against multinationals or populists at home and abroad. In this provocative book, Adrian Pabst contends that liberal democracy is illiberal and undemocratic – intolerant about the values of ordinary people while concentrating power and wealth in the hands of unaccountable elites. Under the influence of contemporary liberalism, democracy is sliding into oligarchy, demagogy and anarchy. Liberals, far from defending open markets and free speech, promote monopolies such as the new tech giants that undermine competition and democratic debate. Liberal individualism has eroded the social bonds and civic duties on which democracy depends for trust and cooperation. To banish liberal democracy’s demons, Pabst proposes radical ideas for economic democracy, a politics of persuasion and a better balance of personal freedom with social solidarity. This book’s defence of democratic politics against both liberals and populists will speak to all readers trying to understand our age of upheaval.

Author: Daniel E. Cullen
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498502474
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
The essays in this book reflect on the paradoxical relationship of liberal education and liberal democracy. Liberal education emphasizes knowledge for its own sake, detached from all instrumental purposes. It also aims at liberation from the manifold sources of unfreedom, including political sources. In this sense, liberal education is negative, questioning any and all constraints on the activity of mind. Liberal democracy, devoted to securing individual natural rights, purports to be the regime of liberty par excellence. Since both liberal education and liberal democracy aim to set individuals free, they would seem to be harmonious and mutually reinforcing. But there are reasons to doubt that liberal education can be the civic education liberal democracy needs. If liberal education is in tension with all instrumental purposes, how does it stand toward the goal of preparing the kind of citizens liberal democracy needs? The book’s contributors are critical of the way higher education typically interprets its responsibility for educating citizens, and they link those failures to academia’s neglect of certain founding principles of the American political tradition and of the traditional liberal arts ideal.

Author: Roger Eatwell
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241312019
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A crucial new guide to one of the most important and most dangerous phenomena of our time: the rise of populism in the West Across the West, there is a rising tide of people who feel excluded, alienated from mainstream politics, and increasingly hostile towards minorities, immigrants and neo-liberal economics. Many of these voters are turning to national populist movements, which pose the most serious threat to the Western liberal democratic system, and its values, since the Second World War. From the United States to France, Austria to the UK, the national populist challenge to mainstream politics is all around us. But what is behind this exclusionary turn? Who supports these movements and why? What does their rise tell us about the health of liberal democratic politics in the West? And what, if anything, should we do to respond to these challenges? Written by two of the foremost experts on fascism and the rise of the populist right, National Populism is a lucid and deeply-researched guide to the radical transformations of today's political landscape, revealing why liberal democracies across the West are being challenged-and what those who support them can do to help stem the tide.

Author: Stephen Turner
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761954699
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
'... a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read widely. It ranges across central concerns in the fields of social theory, political theory, and science studies and engages with the ideas of key classical and contemporary thinkers' - Barry Smart, Professor of Sociology, University of Portsmouth

Author: William E. Scheuerman
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421440490
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
"A fine contribution to the literature on the problems of modern liberal democracy."—Choice The pace of American society has quickened exponentially since the Founding Fathers first mapped the constitution. Information travels at the speed of light; so does money. We can hop from one side of the country to the other in a matter of hours, contact our elected officials instantaneously, and share our views with thousands of people at the touch of a button. Both academia and the popular media have grappled with the consequences of this acceleration on every aspect of contemporary life. Most pressing, however, may be its impact on political life. In Liberal Democracy and the Social Acceleration of Time, William Scheuerman offers a sophisticated assessment of the implications of social and technological celerity in the operation of liberal democracies. Specifically, he asks what is acceleration's main impact on the traditional liberal democratic model of the separation of powers? According to Scheuerman, high speed has created an imbalance. The executive branch was intended to react with dispatch; by contrast, legislatures and the courts were designed to be more deliberate and thoughtful. While this system of checks and balances was effective in the age of horse and buggy, Scheuerman argues that the very features that were these institutions' strengths may now be a liability. Throughout this book, Scheuerman offers a constructive critique which articulates ways in which "liberal democracy might be recalibrated in accordance with the tempo of modern society.