Showing papers on "Democracy published in 1988"

Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History

Abstract: A century and a half after the publication of Alexis de Tocqueville's account of his visit to the United States, a mode of behavior that he may have been the first systematic social critic to identify has undergone extraordinary waves of analysis and attack. In four brief chapters in the third book of the second volume of Democracy in America, published in 1840, Tocqueville addressed the situation of women. His observations display Tocqueville's habitual charm, his fearlessness in making broad generalizations, his mastery of language. When Democracy in America was rediscovered and widely reprinted in the years after World War II, his chapters were among the few-perhaps the only-classic texts read by students of American history that seriously examined the situation of women in American society. When historians whether inspired by Simone de Beauvoir or Eleanor Flexner or Betty Friedan began again to study women's history, they could point to Tocqueville for evidence that at least one classic, Great Author had conceded the significance of their subject. Tocqueville restricted his observations on women to a section entitled "Influence of Democracy on Manners Properly So Called." He alluded to the separation of male and female spheres in the course of his contrasting and impressionistic portraits of

The closing of the American mind: how higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today's students

Abstract: "The Closing of the American Mind, " a publishing phenomenon in hardcover, is now a paperback literary event. In this acclaimed number one national best-seller, one of our country's most distinguished political philosophers argues that the social/political crisis 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis. Allan Bloom's sweeping analysis is essential to understanding America today. It has fired the imagination of a public ripe for change.

Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone

Abstract: The last four years have seen a remarkable resurgence of democracy in the Southern Cone of the Americas. Military regimes have been replaced in Argentina (1983), Uruguay (1985), and Brazil (1985). Despite great interest in these new democracies, the role of the military in the process of transition has been under-theorized and under-researched. Alfred Stepan, one of the best-known analysts of the military in politics, examines some of the reasons for this neglect and takes a new look at themes raised in his earlier work on the state, the breakdown of democracy, and the military. The reader of this book will gain a fresh understanding of new democracies and democratic movements throughout the world and their attempts to understand and control the military. An earlier version of this book has been a controversial best seller in Brazil. To examine the Brazilian case, the author uses a variety of new archival material and interviews, with comparative data from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Spain. Brazilian military leaders had consolidated their hold on governmental power by strengthening the military-crafted intelligence services, but they eventually found these same intelligence systems to be a formidable threat. Professor Stepan explains how redemocratization occurred as the military reached into the civil sector for allies in its struggle against the growing influence of the intelligence community. He also explores dissension within the military and the continuing conflicts between the military and the civilian government.

Democracy and political theory

Abstract: This book examines the central questions of democracy and politics in modern societies. Through an analysis of some of the key texts of 19th and 20th century thought - from Marx, Michelet and de Tocqueville to Hannah Arendt - the author explores the ambiguities of democracy, the nature of human rights, the idea and the reality of revolution, the emergence of totalitarianism and the changing relations between politics, religion and the image of the body. While developing a highly original account of the nature of politics and power in modern societies, he links political reflection to the interpretation of history as an open, indeterminate process of which we are part. This work should interest specialists in social and political theory and philosophers.

Agenda-Setting Research: Where Has It Been, Where Is It Going?

Abstract: Understanding the processes of influence in societies has intrigued generations of scholars. One method of studying such influence in modern democracy is to investigate mass media, public, and policy agendas, defined as issues or events that are viewed at a point in time as ranked in a hierarchy of importance. Research by communication scholars and other social scientists has typically conceptualized either the mass media agenda, the public agenda, or the policy agenda as a dependent variable in order to explain how it is influenced by other factors. This chapter (1) analyzes past research on agenda-setting in order to learn where this research literature is deficient and where it is sufficient and (2) synthesizes this research literature with a view toward learning important theoretical and methodological lessons for future agenda-setting research.

Democracy, Economic Development, and Income Inequality

Abstract: Most cross-national tests of inverse association between democracy and inequality have operationalized the concept of democracy by measuring its level at a single point in time. More compelling theoretical arguments can be made for causal relationships that operate over time between (1) a country's years of democratic experience and income inequality; and (2) income inequality and the stability of democracy. Continuous and qualitative measures of years of democratic experience are estimated to have a significant negative impact on income inequality independent of economic development and other control variables for a sample of 55 countries. A very strong inverse correlation is also observed between income inequality and regime stability for a sample of 33 democracies. This association holds independent of economic development, which is found to have no direct effect on democratic stability after controlling for income inequality.

The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars: Domestic Politics and War

Abstract: Domestic Politics and War It is difficult to read both the theoretical literature in political science on the causes of war and historians' case studies of the origins of particular wars without being struck by the difference in their respective evaluations of the importance of domestic political factors. Whereas historians devote considerable attention to these variables, most political scientists minimize their importance. Domestic political variables are not included in any of the leading theories of the causes of war; instead, they appear only in a number of isolated hypotheses and in some empirical studies that are generally atheoretical and noncumulative. This gap is troubling and suggests that political scientists and historians who study war have learned little from each other. A greater recognition of the role of domestic factors by political scientists would increase the explanatory power of their theories and provide more useful conceptual frameworks for the historical analysis of individual wars. This study takes a first step toward bridging this gap by examining some of the disparate theoretical literature on domestic politics and war. It examines the relationship between national attributes and war behavior, the relative likelihood of democratic and non-democratic regimes going to war, Marxist and liberal theories regarding the impact of economic structure, the influence of nationalism and public opinion, and the scapegoat hypothesis. First, however, this article takes a closer look at the different treatment of domestic sources of war by political scientists and historians.

Principals, bureaucrats, and responsiveness in clean air enforcements.

Abstract: A principal-agent perspective has been employed in recent studies to rediscover the importance of democratic hierarchies in shaping public bureaucratic outputs. I test the robustness of the hierarchy model for explaining outputs from an agency that has often been cast in the image of bureaucratic independence, the Environmental Protection Agency. Examining the effect of the Reagan presidency on EPA outputs for clean air, Box-Tiao models are constructed to explain shifts in the vigor of air pollution enforcements between 1977 and 1985. The analysis shows that the influence of elected institutions is limited when an agency has substantial bureaucratic resources and a zeal for their use. Moreover, under these conditions, bureaucracy can even move outputs in directions completely opposite from what a model of hierarchy would predict. The implication is that for some agencies it is necessary to give greater consideration to the agent in explaining implementation outcomes through time.

Constitutionalism and Democracy

Abstract: Notes on contributors, Introduction Jon Elster 1. Gag rules or the politics of omission Stephen Holmes 2. Democracy as a contingent outcome of conflicts Adam Przeworski 3. Consequences of constitutional choice: reflections on Tocqueville Jon Elster 4. Liberal constitutionalism and its critics: Carl Schmitt and Max Weber Rune Slagstad 5. Democracy and the rule of law: some historical experiences of contradictions in the striving for good government Francis Sejersted 6. Neo-federalism? Bruce A. Ackerman 7. Precommitment and the paradox of democracy Stephen Holmes 8. American constitutionalism and the paradox of private property Jennifer Nedelsky 9. From liberal constitutionalism to corporate pluralism: the conflict over the enabling acts in Norway after the Second World War and the subsequent constitutional development Francis Sejersted 10. Arguments of constitutional choice: reflections on the transition to socialism Jon Elster 11. Constitutions and democracies: an epilogue Cass R. Sunstein Index.

Constitutionalism and Democracy: Democracy as a contingent outcome of conflicts

Abstract: Anyone who has lived through moments when a dictatorship was about to fall and democracy become a real possibility remembers almost constant tension, hopes that repeatedly alternated with fears, outbursts of enthusiasm and the pain of defeat. Every step seems difficult and yet nothing seems out of reach. But as one looks for the turning-points, a particular moment appears as a threshold, as a break. At one moment dictatorship has disappeared and has been replaced by democracy. Since this is a “moment” in a world of stylized facts, let me first provide some context, a sort of logical chronology of the processes of transition from dictatorship to democracy. Without entering into a general discussion of authoritarian regimes, which has recently received extensive attention in the work of Juan Linz and Guillermo O'Donnell, I wish to emphasize one characteristic of authoritarian systems (which I will also call “dictatorships,” abandoning some important distinctions). The essential feature of such regimes is that someone has an effective capacity to prevent political outcomes that would be highly adverse to their interests. That “someone” can be an individual, the leader, or an organization, such as the armed forces, the police, the party, or the bureaucracy, or even a less easily identifiable “ring” of groups and individuals. I will speak below of the “authoritarian power apparatus” and introduce distinctions only when they are enlightening for the problem at hand.

The invention of Athens : the funeral oration in the classical city

Abstract: How does the funeral oration relate to democracy in ancient Greece? How did the death of an individual citizen-soldier become the occasion to praise the city of Athens? In The Invention of Athens, Nicole Loraux traces the different rhetoric, politics, and ideology of funeral orations--epitaphioi--from Thucidydes, Gorgias, Lysias, and Demosthenes to Plato Arguing that the ceremony of public burial began circa 508-460 BCE, Loraux demonstrates that the institution of the funeral oration developed under Athenian democracy A secular, not a religious phenomenon, a literary genre with fixed rhetoric effects, the funeral oration was inextricably linked to the epainos--praise of the city--rather than to a ritualized lament for the dead as is commonly assumed Above all, the funeral oration celebrated the city of Athens and the Athenian citizenLoraux interprets the speeches from literary, anthropological, and political perspectives She explains how these acts of secular speech invented an image of Athens often at odds with the presumed ideals of democracy To die in battle for the city was presented as an act of civic choice--the "fine" death that defined the citizen-soldier's noble, aristocratic ethos At the same time, the funeral oration cultivated an image of democracy at a time when there was, for example, no formal theory of a respect for law and liberty, the supremacy of the collective and public over the individual and the private, or freedom of speechThis new edition of The Invention of Athens includes significant revisions made by Nicole Loraux in 1993 Her aim in editing the original text was to render this groundbreaking work accessible to nonspecialists Loraux's introduction to this revised volume, as well as important revisions to the 1986 English translation, make this publication an important addition to scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences

Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative

Abstract: At the height of the McCarthy era, when Congressional committees were exposing "communist infiltration" in many areas of American life, the Supreme Court was upholding loyalty oath requirements, and the executive branch was ferreting out alleged communists in government, the U.S. Attorney General filed a pro-civil rights brief in what would become one of the most celebrated civil rights cases in American history: Brown v. Board of Education. Although seemingly at odds with the restrictive approach to individual rights in other contexts, the U.S. government's participation in the desegregation cases during the McCarthy era was no anomaly. Rather, by the early 1950s, American leaders had come to believe that civil rights reform was crucial to the more central U.S. mission of fighting world communism. Based in part on diplomatic research in State Department archives, this article demonstrates that Cold War motives influenced the U.S. government's involvement in Brown and other cases. Originally published in 1988 in the Stanford Law Review, this article was the first publication to use State Department records to examine the relationship between Cold War foreign relations and civil rights in the United States. Diplomatic records illustrate the growing concern among American diplomats and political leaders after World War II about the impact of race discrimination on the U.S. image around the world, and the global critique that the United States could not be an effective "leader of the free world" as long as the nation blatantly denied rights to its own peoples. This research confirmed the suspicions of Derrick Bell and others who argued before these records were opened that foreign affairs affected U.S. government civil rights policies, and it helped illuminate the world-wide impact of the civil rights movement. This research was expanded upon in Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2000), and in books and articles by other scholars. The larger body of work on race and foreign relations is an important aspect of efforts by historians to "internationalize" the study of American history. Thanks to the Stanford Law Review, the article is now available on SSRN so that it will be easily accessible on-line.

Constitutionalism and Democracy: Precommitment and the paradox of democracy

Abstract: Il est absurde que la volonte se donne des chaines pour l'avenir. Rousseau Laurence Tribe opens his influential treatise on constitutional law with a concise formulation of the countermajoritarian dilemma – the discord between majoritarian politics and constitutionally anchored restraints: “In its most basic form, the question … is why a nation that rests legality on the consent of the governed would choose to constitute its political life in terms of commitments to an original agreement … deliberately structured so as to be difficult to change.” The underlying problem has been posed in a variety of ways. How can the “consent of the governed” be reconciled with the preempting of subsequent consent by a Constitutional Convention? Why should a constitutional framework, ratified two centuries ago, have such enormous power over our lives today? Why should a minority of our fellow citizens be empowered to prevent amendments to the Constitution? Is judicial review, when based on a superstitious fealty to the intent of the Framers, compatible with popular sovereignty? The tension between constitutionalism and democracy These questions have a long history. In the Flag Salute Case of 1943, Justice Robert Jackson issued the following classical pronouncement: The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.

Laboratories of democracy

Abstract: This text looks at six governors who sponsored programs in the 1980s concerning American politics. The author explores their experimental economic and social programs, from technology development to welfare reform.

Democracy and Economic Development: Modernization Theory Revisited

Abstract: Interest in the relationships between society and politics is as old as written history. Ecological theories, suggesting a relation between the geographic location of homelands and the personalities of the residents and their governments, were advanced by scholars such as Aristotle, Cicero, Ibn Khaldun, and Montesquieu and may be viewed as efforts to explain the contextual determinants of political systems. Such literature in the modern era, however, has focused on the conditions of democracy. Historical studies suggest that modem democracies can occur only under certain conditions of capitalist industrialization. Karl Marx identified the bourgeoisie as the major force behind the emergence of democracy. He argued that the capitalist class used parliamentary systems and democratic mechanisms to capture the control of the state from the traditional elite. Similarly, Moore, in his study of major western democracies, and Soboul, in his analysis of the French Revolution, stressed the role of the middle class and urban bourgeoisie in the transformation of political systems into democracies.' Max Weber marked the importance of Protestantism in the development of western democracies. He considered individualism and a sense of individual responsibility, inherent in the Protestant ethic, as the major conditions for the development of burgher classes and a democratic political culture. Contemporary writers, following Weber's lead, have searched for cultural requisites and the elements of a "democratic personality." A "civic culture" in Almond and Verba and a "modern" personality in Lerner have been identified as essentials of a participant (democratic) society.2 Tocqueville, in his study of American institutions, pointed out the virtue of voluntary associations as the basis of social pluralism, which in turn nurtures democracy. However, the sociology of knowledge, which emphasizes the influence of structure and organizational setting on the development of attitudes and behaviors, compels us to direct our attention to the structural basis of developing such a culture or personality. In this regard, aspects of modernization appear to be the common explanatory factors used in the analysis of democracy.

The American political economy : macroeconomics and electoral politics

Abstract: Here is the most comprehensive and authoritative work to date on relationships between the economy and politics in the years from Eisenhower through Reagan. Extending and deepening his earlier work, which had major impact in both political science and economics, Hibbs traces the patterns in and sources of postwar growth, unemployment, and inflation. He identifies which groups "win" and "lose" from inflations and recessions. He also shows how voters' perceptions and reactions to economic events affect the electoral fortunes of political parties and presidents. Hibbs's analyses demonstrate that political officials in a democratic society ignore the economic interests and demands of their constituents at their peril, because episodes of prosperity and austerity frequently have critical influence on voters' behavior at the polls. The consequences of Eisenhower's last recession, of Ford's unwillingness to stimulate the economy, of Carter's stalled recovery were electorally fatal, whereas Johnson's, Nixon's, and Reagan's successes in presiding over rising employment and real incomes helped win elections. The book develops a major theory of macroeconomic policy action that explains why priority is given to growth, unemployment, inflation, and income distribution shifts with changes in partisan control of the White House. The analysis shows how such policy priorities conform to the underlying economic interests and preferences of the governing party's core political supporters. Throughout the study Hibbs is careful to take account of domestic institutional arrangements and international economic events that constrain domestic policy effectiveness and influence domestic economic outcomes. Hibbs's interdisciplinary approach yields more rigorous and more persuasive characterizations of the American political economy than either purely economic, apolitical analyses or purely partisan, politicized accounts. His book provides a useful benchmark for the advocacy of new policies for the 1990s--a handy volume for politicians and their staffs, as well as for students and teachers of politics and economics.

Rethinking democracy : freedom and social cooperation in politics, economy, and society

Abstract: Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Freedom, reciprocity, and democracy 2. Ontological foundations of democracy 3. Social ontology and the question of foundationalism in ethics 4. Economic justice, self-management, and the principle of reciprocity 5. Equal rights, individual differences, and the ideal of self-development: paradoxes in the theory of democracy 6. Contemporary legal conceptions of property and their implications for democracy 7. What are the human rights? 8. Making participation and authority compatible 9. Participation and self-management: a model of democracy 10. Technology and ethics: should technology be left to the experts? 11. The democratic personality: self-development, character, and political participation 12. Cosmopolitical democracy: moral principles among nations Notes Index.

Womanpower: The Arab Debate on Women at Work

Abstract: Womanpower unveils the lively but little-reported debate on women's position in the modern Arab world. It paints a picture drawn from individual stories as well as from national development programmes and attempts to explain why the process of social change in the region has been slow and uneven by linking it to political and economic developments. By illustrating particular themes - personal status laws, development policies, political rights - with examples from specific countries, Nadia Hijab builds up an informative overview of the Arab world today. The title sums up the two-pronged approach: the process of integrating women into the modern work-force and of empowering them to enjoy equal rights and opportunities. The book argues that those seeking equal rights for Arab women cannot isolate this aim from the search to liberate Arab potential and resources and for democratic political systems. The Arab world is a region in search of an identity. The book discusses the differing views of liberals and conservatives, most of whom are concerned that Arab identity be developed in an indigenous context rather than by slavish imitation.

Democracy and Participation in Athens

Abstract: Preface Maps 1. The Athenian polis and the evolution of democracy 2. The privileges and the opportunities of the citizen 3. The responsibilities of the citizen 4. The sovereignty of the Demos, officials and the Council 5. Citizens and participation 6. The hazards of leadership 7. The rewards of leadership 8. The critics of Athenian democracy Appendices Bibliography Index.

Hegemony and New Political Subjects: Toward a New Concept of Democracy

Abstract: Apesar do notável insight de Tocqueville sobre as implicações potenciais de uma revolução democrática, é improvável que ele tenha imaginado que chegássemos, como hoje, ao nosso questionamento da totalidade das relações sociais. Ele acreditava, como se pode ver em suas reflexões sobre a igualdade da mulher, que o inexorável impulso em direção a igualdade deveria levar em conta certas diferenças enraizadas na natureza. É exatamente esse caráter de alteridade permanente, baseadas em certas concepções de essências naturais, que hoje é contestada por um importante segmento do movimento feminista. Não se trata apenas de que a revolução democrática provou ser mais radical do que previa Tocque* Departamento de psicologia da Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso (UFMT)

Political Intolerance and Political Repression During the McCarthy Red Scare

Abstract: I test several hypotheses concerning the origins of political repression in the states of the United States. The hypotheses are drawn from the elitist theory of democracy, which asserts that repression of unpopular political minorities stems from the intolerance of the mass public, the generally more tolerant elites not supporting such repression. Focusing on the repressive legislation adopted by the states during the McCarthy era, I examine the relationships between elite and mass opinion and repressive public policy. Generally it seems that elites, not masses, were responsible for the repression of the era. These findings suggest that the elitist theory of democracy is in need of substantial theoretical reconsideration, as well as further empirical investigation.

Businessmen and Reform: A Study of the Progressive Movement

Abstract: In this perceptive, influential book, Robert Wiebe shows how businessmen helped to shape-and were shaped by-social reform in the early years of the 20th century. The Progressive Era served as a way station between agrarian and urban America: into it came men and women, institutions, and values born on the farms and in the towns; out of it emerged the first practical experiments in social reorganization for an industrial era. Although this exciting, noisy, and hopeful period contained much lost motion, beneath the tumult it contributed lasting changes in American life. In particular, demands came largely from a wide range of middle-income Americans whose arrival as organized, articulate, and demanding citizens reordered the social structure. Privileges of leadership were redistributed to accommodate these challengers. In the process, as Mr. Wiebe shows, businessmen took the lead in demanding reforms-but divided into bitterly hostile factions and shied away from movements to extend democracy and public welfare. "Gracefully written, thoroughly researched, and imaginative...Wiebe's approach to progressivism, through "content" rather than through personality, and through the organized group rather than through the individual, incontrovertibly has great value. "-American Historical Review.

Populist politics, communications media and large scale societal integration

Abstract: Observations of public apathy in today's electoral democracies are commonplace (Neumann, 1986). For many social scientists, low voter turnout and similar indicators are simply reasons for believing that liberal democracies will always be governed by elites, though these may shift over time. Recently, a number of authors have argued against this view, and indeed against the presumption that representative institutions are the only form of participation workable in modern, large-scale polities. Characterizing representation as a form of "thin democracy," for example, Barber (1984) has called for a move towards a "strong democracy" based on new or revitalized forms of popular participation. His proposals stress two dimensions of such participation: the renewal of community level institutions of self-rule and the development of more frequent national referenda.... My argument in this paper is that the theoretical grounds on which most discussion of these issues takes place are doubly deficient. In the first place, numerical size, while a central variable, does not adequately grasp the transformation in social organization wrought during the modern era. We need to address contrasting forms of social integration as well as sizes of population. I shall adopt Habermas's (1984) distinction of system world/system integration from lifeworld/social integration for this purpose. I will argue that the current efflorescence of populist politics (of both left and right) simultaneously is a response to the split between system world and lifeworld, and is limited in an often poorly recognized way by the implications of large scale system integration. Secondly, academic discussion of representative vs. direct democracy has tended to focus on mechanisms of decision-making at the expense of attention to public discourse and the educational functions of politics. Communitarian populists (though generally not plebiscitarians) are sensitive to this, and offer proposals for improved settings for local discourse and political language less prejudicial to the values of community and tradition (Barber, 1984; Bellah, et al., 1985; Evans and Boyte, 1986). Most, however, approach this predominantly in cultural rather than social structural terms, and underestimate the limits imposed by large scale system integration. Above all, both communitarian and plebiscitarian visions tend to neglect the structural difficulties which social change has put in the way of public discourse among people significantly different from each other. Changes in cities and community patterns on the one hand, and in communications systems on the other, make it likely that no extension of community level discourse or mobilization will constitute a public discourse at the level of the state. This is a limit to communitarian politics, but not an argument against them. At the same time, the issues presented here do argue against most proposals for extensive reliance on referenda.

The Struggle for Democracy

Abstract: The most distinctive and intelligent introductory text in American government today, The Struggle for Democracy, now in its third edition, provides an even more accessible and inviting springboard for learning the enduring and conceptual heart of this course - the meaning and value of democracy. The goals of this book are to provide the tools with which to think critically about democracy and to examine and evaluate the American political system. With a definition of democracy introduced early in the book, students will learn how to measure the health and vitality of democracy in the United States. In addition to this evaluative theme, the authors employ a dramatic narrative theme of the struggle for democracy, which stresses that the advance of democracy in the United States is a product of a series of small victories won over the years by ordinary Americans, and that further progress depends on the continuing struggle for democracy.