Showing titles in Democracy

Citizen Servant Leader – Founder's Legacy Edition Leadership does not begin with authority. It begins with responsibility. Citizen Servant Leader is a field manual for those who find themselves carrying weight without permission, at work, at home, in their communities, or in moments where titles mean nothing and outcomes matter. Through lived experience in combat, high-stakes boardrooms, and international civic movements, Steven Eugene Kuhn lays out a simple but demanding truth: Responsibility precedes credibility. Credibility precedes authority. And truth is the load-bearing beam that ...

Tocqueville n'est pas seulement un analyste politique exceptionnel, c'est aussi un philosophe politique qui aide à comprendre les problèmes se posant dans les démocraties modernes. L'égalité des conditions, l'individualisme, le despotisme démocratique, les relations entre maîtres et serviteurs, l'esprit de liberté et l'esprit de religion, autant de notions qui dessinent aujourd'hui encore les contours d'une philosophie de la démocratie.

Public opinion polling is the ultimate democratic process; it gives every person an equal voice in letting elected leaders know what they need and want. But in the eyes of the public, polls today are tarnished. Recent election forecasts have routinely missed the mark and media coverage of polls has focused solely on predicting winners and losers. In Strength in Numbers, data journalist G. Elliott Morris argues that the larger purpose of political polls is to improve democracy, not just predict elections. 

In Trajectory of Power, leading political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe provide a sweeping account of the historical rise of presidential power, arguing that it has now grown to the point where, in the wrong hands, it threatens to subvert American democracy and replace it with a de facto system of strongman rule, whether led by Donald Trump or someone else.

In 1960, Barry Goldwater set forth his brief manifesto in The Conscience of a Conservative. Written at the height of the Cold War and in the wake of America’s greatest experiment with big government, the New Deal, Goldwater’s message was not only remarkable, but radical. He argued for the value and importance of conservative principles—freedom, foremost among them—in contemporary political life. Using the principles he espoused in this concise but powerful book, Goldwater fundamentally altered the political landscape of his day—and ours.

According to The New York Times, Noam Chomsky is "arguably the most important intellectual alive." But he isn't easy to read...or at least he wasn't until these books came along. Made up of intensively edited speeches and interviews, they offer something not found anywhere else: pure Chomsky, with every dazzling idea and penetrating insight intact, delivered in clear, accessible, listener-friendly prose.

McKinley introduces his readers to over thirty authors of the ancient classics, illuminating who they were, the times they lived in, and their works that have come down to us through the millennia. In the process, we are introduced to the world-changing historical events of antiquity from the Greco-Persian Wars to the centuries of conquests that built the Roman Empire. Rather than reading second-hand accounts, we share the experience through the words of the men who lived and wrote this history, from Thucydides to Julius Caesar. We read multiple original accounts of decisive events such as ...

American Exceptionalism and American Innocence examines the stories we’re told that lead us to think that the U.S. is a force for good in the world, regardless of slavery, the genocide of indigenous people, and the more than a century’s worth of imperialist war that the U.S. has wrought on the planet. Roberto Sirvent and Danny Haiphong detail just what Captain America’s shield tells us about the pretensions of U.S. foreign policy, how Angelina Jolie and Bill Gates engage in humanitarian imperialism, and more.

The effort to destroy facts and make America ungovernable didn't come out of nowhere. It is the culmination of seventy years of strategic denialism. In On Disinformation, Lee McIntyre shows how the war on facts began, and how ordinary citizens can fight back against the scourge of disinformation that is now threatening the very fabric of our society.

In Necropolitics, Achille Mbembe, a leader in the new wave of francophone critical theory, theorizes the genealogy of the contemporary world, a world plagued by ever-increasing inequality, militarization, enmity, and terror as well as by a resurgence of racist, fascist, and nationalist forces determined to exclude and kill. He outlines how democracy has begun to embrace its dark side - what he calls its "nocturnal body" - which is based on the desires, fears, affects, relations, and violence that drove colonialism. 

WE don't do dictators or kings in America! The U.S. Constitution serves as the supreme law of the land, establishing the structure of government, outlining its powers, and protecting individual rights. Neo-fascism emphasizes ultranationalism, populism, and a rejection of parliamentary democracy. It often includes nativism, anti-immigration policies, and hostility towards minority groups. It overlaps with white nationalism, as seen in the alt-right movement, which rejects mainstream conservatism in favor of white supremacist ideology. The radical right's hostility to liberal democracy and ...

Many Americans believe that their own government is guilty of shocking crimes. Although paranoia has been a feature of the American scene since the birth of the Republic, in Real Enemies, Kathryn Olmsted tells us that it was only in the 20th century that strange and unlikely conspiracy theories became central to American politics, In particular, she posits World War I as a critical turning point and shows that as the federal bureaucracy expanded, Americans grew more fearful of the government itself.

For hundreds of years, Bulgarian Gypsies trained bears to dance, welcoming them into their families and taking them on the road to perform. In the early 2000s, with the fall of Communism, they were forced to release the bears into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. In the tradition of Ryszard Kapuściński, award-winning Polish journalist, Witold Szabłowski uncovers remarkable stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and in Cuba who, like Bulgaria’s dancing bears, are now free but who seem nostalgic for the time when they were not.

Written by fifty-five of the richest white men, and signed by only thirty-nine of them, the US constitution is the sacred text of American nationalism. Popular perceptions of it are mired in idolatry, myth, and misinformation—many Americans have opinions on the constitution but have little idea what it says. This book examines the constitution for what it is—a rule book for elites to protect capitalism from democracy.

A journalist and author of The Influence of Soros examines the history of Jewish people in America and explores their ever-evolving relationship to the nation’s culture and identity—and each other. What does it mean to be a Bad Jew? Many Jews use the term “Bad Jew” as a weapon against...

We the Fallen People presents a close look at the ideas of human nature to be found in the history of American democratic thought. McKenzie, following C. S. Lewis, claims there are only two reasons to believe in majority rule: because we have confidence in human nature - or because we don't. The Founders subscribed to the biblical principle that humans are fallen and their virtue is always doubtful, and they wrote the US Constitution to frame a republic intended to handle our weaknesses.

In The Retreat of Western Liberalism, Luce makes a larger statement about the weakening of western hegemony and the crisis of liberal democracy - of which Donald Trump and his European counterparts are not the cause, but a terrifying symptom. Luce argues that we are on a menacing trajectory brought about by ignorance of what it took to build the West, arrogance towards society's economic losers, and complacency about our system's durability.

The rise of the administrative state is the most significant political development in American politics over the past century. While our Constitution separates powers into three branches, and requires that the laws are made by elected representatives in the Congress, today most policies are made by unelected officials in agencies where legislative, executive, and judicial powers are combined. This threatens constitutionalism and the rule of law.

Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer - democratic practices were present in many places at many other times. David Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished - and when and why they declined - can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future.   

Since the 1970s, and notwithstanding three recessions, the U.S. economy has soared. American capitalism has been a triumph, and it has spread throughout the world. At the same time, argues the former U.S. secretary of labor, Robert B. Reich, the effectiveness of democracy in America has declined. It has grown less responsive to the citizenry, and people are feeling more and more helpless as a result.