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Information Power And Democracy
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Book Synopsis Information, Power, and Democracy by : Nico Stehr
Download or read book Information, Power, and Democracy written by Nico Stehr and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-12 with total page 661 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The link between liberty and knowledge is neither static nor simple. Until recently the mutual support between knowledge, science, democracy and emancipation was presupposed. Recently, however, the close relationship between democracy and knowledge has been viewed with skepticism. The growing societal reliance on specialized knowledge often appears to actually undermine democracy. Is it that we do not know enough, but that we know too much? What are the implications for the freedom of societies and their citizens? Does knowledge help or heed them in unraveling the complexity of new challenges? This book systematically explores the shifting dynamics of knowledge production and the implications for the conditions and practices of freedom. It considers the growth of knowledge about knowledge and the impact of an evolving media. It argues for a revised understanding of the societal role of knowledge and presents the concept of 'knowledge societies' as a major resource for liberty.
Book Synopsis Information and American Democracy by : Bruce Bimber
Download or read book Information and American Democracy written by Bruce Bimber and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-02-24 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book assesses the consequences of new information technologies for American democracy in a way that is theoretical and also historically grounded. The author argues that new technologies have produced the fourth in a series of 'information revolutions' in the US, stretching back to the founding. Each of these, he argues, led to important structural changes in politics. After re-interpreting historical American political development from the perspective of evolving characteristics of information and political communications, the author evaluates effects of the Internet and related new media. The analysis shows that the use of new technologies is contributing to 'post-bureaucratic' political organization and fundamental changes in the structure of political interests. The author's conclusions tie together scholarship on parties, interest groups, bureaucracy, collective action, and political behavior with new theory and evidence about politics in the information age.
Book Synopsis Power Diffusion and Democracy by : Julian Bernauer
Download or read book Power Diffusion and Democracy written by Julian Bernauer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-08 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Departing from the established literature connecting the political-institutional patterns of democracy with the quality of democracy, this book acknowledges that democracies, if they can be described as such, come in a wide range of formats. At the conceptual and theoretical level, the authors make an argument based on deliberation, redrawing power diffusion in terms of the four dimensions of proportionality, decentralisation, presidentialism and direct democracy, and considering the potential interactions between these aspects. Empirically, they assemble data on sixty-one democracies between 1990 and 2015 to assess the performance and legitimacy of democracy. Their findings demonstrate that while, for example, proportional power diffusion is associated with lower income inequality, there is no simple institutional solution to all societal problems. This book explains contemporary levels of power diffusion, their potential convergence and their manifestation at the subnational level in democracies including the United States, Switzerland, Germany and Austria.
Book Synopsis Democracy and Power by : Noam Chomsky
Download or read book Democracy and Power written by Noam Chomsky and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2014-12-07 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Noam Chomsky visited India in 1996 and 2001 and spoke on a wide range of subjects, from democracy and corporate propaganda to the nature of the world order and the role of intellectuals in society. He captivated audiences with his lucid challenge of dominant political analyses, the engaging style of his talks, and his commitment to social equality as well as individual freedom. Chomsky’s early insights into the workings of power in the modern world remain timely and compelling. Published for the first time, this series of lectures also provides the reader with an invaluable introduction to the essential ideas of one of the leading thinkers of our time.
Book Synopsis Power in Deliberative Democracy by : Nicole Curato
Download or read book Power in Deliberative Democracy written by Nicole Curato and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-10 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism.
Book Synopsis Rationality and Power by : Bent Flyvbjerg
Download or read book Rationality and Power written by Bent Flyvbjerg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-02-28 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Enlightenment tradition, rationality is considered well-defined. However, the author of this study argues that rationality is context-dependent, and that the crucial context is determined by decision-makers' political power. He uses a real-world Danish project to illustrate this theory.
Book Synopsis Power Sharing and Democracy in Post-Civil War States by : Caroline A. Hartzell
Download or read book Power Sharing and Democracy in Post-Civil War States written by Caroline A. Hartzell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides empirical evidence that power-sharing measures used to end civil wars can help facilitate a transition to minimalist democracy.
Book Synopsis The Information Game in Democracy by : Dipankar Sinha
Download or read book The Information Game in Democracy written by Dipankar Sinha and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2018-03-07 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines democracy and governance from the unconventional and largely under researched vantage point of information. It looks at the exclusionary informational dynamics in democracy and analyses the role of information capitalism, new technology, virtual networks, cyberspace and media. While emphasizing the foundational value of information as the ‘source code’ of modern societies the book explains how it is strategically maneuvered in technologies of governance in so-called established and credible democracies. It studies the neutralization and subversion as well as the complex, nuanced and multidimensional act of othering of people, who are supposed to be the repository of power in democracy and in whose interest the business of governance is expected to be conducted. The work highlights the challenges of technocratic interpretations, stunted public policy communication, hyped information society, cooption through the state-of-the-art capitalism, rhetoric of virtual networks and the often-unilateral agenda of mainstream media. A major intervention in understanding the nature of contemporary democracy and polity, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics, media, political communication and technology studies.
Book Synopsis Information, Democracy, and Autocracy by : James R. Hollyer
Download or read book Information, Democracy, and Autocracy written by James R. Hollyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-27 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advocates for economic development often call for greater transparency. But what does transparency really mean? What are its consequences? This breakthrough book demonstrates how information impacts major political phenomena, including mass protest, the survival of dictatorships, democratic stability, as well as economic performance. The book introduces a new measure of a specific facet of transparency: the dissemination of economic data. Analysis shows that democracies make economic data more available than do similarly developed autocracies. Transparency attracts investment and makes democracies more resilient to breakdown. But transparency has a dubious consequence under autocracy: political instability. Mass-unrest becomes more likely, and transparency can facilitate democratic transition - but most often a new despotic regime displaces the old. Autocratic leaders may also turn these threats to their advantage, using the risk of mass-unrest that transparency portends to unify the ruling elite. Policy-makers must recognize the trade-offs transparency entails.
Book Synopsis Google and Democracy by : Sean Richey
Download or read book Google and Democracy written by Sean Richey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time in human history, access to information on almost any topic is accessible through the Internet. A powerful extraction system is needed to disseminate this knowledge, which for most users is Google. Google Search is an extremely powerful and important component to American political life in the twenty-first century, yet its influence is poorly researched or understood. Sean Richey and J. Benjamin Taylor explore for the first time the influence of Google on American politics, specifically on direct democracy. Using original experiments and nationally representative cross-sectional data, Richey and Taylor show how Google Search returns quality information, that users click on quality information, and gain political knowledge and other contingent benefits. Additionally, they correlate Google usage with real-world voting behavior on direct democracy. Building a theory of Google Search use for ballot measures, Google and Democracy is an original addition to the literature on the direct democracy, Internet politics, and information technology. An indispensable read to all those wishing to gain new insights on how the Internet has the power to be a normatively valuable resource for citizens.
Book Synopsis Science and Democracy by : Stephen Hilgartner
Download or read book Science and Democracy written by Stephen Hilgartner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the life sciences and beyond, new developments in science and technology and the creation of new social orders go hand in hand. In short, science and society are simultaneously and reciprocally coproduced and changed. Scientific research not only produces new knowledge and technological systems but also constitutes new forms of expertise and contributes to the emergence of new modes of living and new forms of exchange. These dynamic processes are tightly connected to significant redistributions of wealth and power, and they sometimes threaten and sometimes enhance democracy. Understanding these phenomena poses important intellectual and normative challenges: neither traditional social sciences nor prevailing modes of democratic governance have fully grappled with the deep and growing significance of knowledge-making in twenty-first century politics and markets. Building on new work in science and technology studies (STS), this book advances the systematic analysis of the coproduction of knowledge and power in contemporary societies. Using case studies in the new life sciences, supplemented with cases on informatics and other topics such as climate science, this book presents a theoretical framing of coproduction processes while also providing detailed empirical analyses and nuanced comparative work. Science and Democracy: Knowledge as Wealth and Power in the Biosciences and Beyond will be interesting for students of sociology, science & technology studies, history of science, genetics, political science, and public administration.
Book Synopsis Governance.com by : Elaine C. Kamarck
Download or read book Governance.com written by Elaine C. Kamarck and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-05-26 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brookings Institution Press and Visions of Governance for the 21st Century publication Advances in information technology are transforming democratic governance. Power over information has become decentralized, fostering new types of community and different roles for government. This volume—developed by the Visions of Governance in the 21st Century program at the Kennedy School of Government—explores the ways in which the information revolution is changing our institutions of governance. Contributors examine the impact of technology on our basic institutions and processes of governance, including representation, community, politics, bureaucracy, and sovereignty. Their essays illuminate many of the promises and challenges of twenty-first century government. The contributors (all from Harvard unless otherwise indicated) include Joseph S. Nye Jr., Arthur Isak Applbaum, Dennis Thompson, William A. Galston (University of Maryland), L. Jean Camp, Pippa Norris, Anna Greenberg, Elaine Ciulla Kamarck, David C. King, Jane Fountain, Jerry Mechling, and Robert O. Keohane (Duke University).
Book Synopsis The Rise of Digital Repression by : Steven Feldstein
Download or read book The Rise of Digital Repression written by Steven Feldstein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is undergoing a profound set of digital disruptions that are changing the nature of how governments counter dissent and assert control over their countries. While increasing numbers of people rely primarily or exclusively on online platforms, authoritarian regimes have concurrently developed a formidable array of technological capabilities to constrain and repress their citizens. In The Rise of Digital Repression, Steven Feldstein documents how the emergence of advanced digital tools bring new dimensions to political repression. Presenting new field research from Thailand, the Philippines, and Ethiopia, he investigates the goals, motivations, and drivers of these digital tactics. Feldstein further highlights how governments pursue digital strategies based on a range of factors: ongoing levels of repression, political leadership, state capacity, and technological development. The international community, he argues, is already seeing glimpses of what the frontiers of repression look like. For instance, Chinese authorities have brought together mass surveillance, censorship, DNA collection, and artificial intelligence to enforce their directives in Xinjiang. As many of these trends go global, Feldstein shows how this has major implications for democracies and civil society activists around the world. A compelling synthesis of how anti-democratic leaders harness powerful technology to advance their political objectives, The Rise of Digital Repression concludes by laying out innovative ideas and strategies for civil society and opposition movements to respond to the digital autocratic wave.
Book Synopsis Carbon Democracy by : Timothy Mitchell
Download or read book Carbon Democracy written by Timothy Mitchell and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A brilliant, revisionist argument that places oil companies at the heart of 20th century history—and of the political and environmental crises we now face.” —Guardian Oil is a curse, it is often said, that condemns the countries producing it to an existence defined by war, corruption and enormous inequality. Carbon Democracy tells a more complex story, arguing that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil. It shapes the body politic both in regions such as the Middle East, which rely upon revenues from oil production, and in the places that have the greatest demand for energy. Timothy Mitchell begins with the history of coal power to tell a radical new story about the rise of democracy. Coal was a source of energy so open to disruption that oligarchies in the West became vulnerable for the first time to mass demands for democracy. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the development of cheap and abundant energy from oil, most notably from the Middle East, offered a means to reduce this vulnerability to democratic pressures. The abundance of oil made it possible for the first time in history to reorganize political life around the management of something now called “the economy” and the promise of its infinite growth. The politics of the West became dependent on an undemocratic Middle East. In the twenty-first century, the oil-based forms of modern democratic politics have become unsustainable. Foreign intervention and military rule are faltering in the Middle East, while governments everywhere appear incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy—the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order. In making the production of energy the central force shaping the democratic age, Carbon Democracy rethinks the history of energy, the politics of nature, the theory of democracy, and the place of the Middle East in our common world.
Download or read book Driving Democracy written by Pippa Norris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-08-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proposals for power-sharing constitutions remain controversial, as highlighted by current debates in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sudan. This book updates and refines the theory of consociationalism, taking account of the flood of contemporary innovations in power-sharing institutions that have occurred worldwide. The book classifies and compares four types of political institutions: the electoral system, parliamentary or presidential executives, unitary or federal states, and the structure and independence of the mass media. The study tests the potential advantages and disadvantages of each of these institutions for democratic governance. Cross-national time-series data concerning trends in democracy are analyzed for all countries worldwide since the early 1970s. Chapters are enriched by comparing detailed case studies. The mixed-method research design illuminates the underlying causal mechanisms by examining historical developments and processes of institutional change within particular nations and regions. The conclusion draws together the results and the practical lessons for policymakers.
Book Synopsis You Call this Democracy? by : Elizabeth Rusch
Download or read book You Call this Democracy? written by Elizabeth Rusch and published by Clarion Books. This book was released on 2020 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America is the greatest democracy in the world . . . isn't it? Author Elizabeth Rusch examines some of the more problematic aspects of our government but, more importantly, offers ways for young people to fix them. The political landscape has never been so tumultuous: issues with the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and a lack of representation in the polls and in our leadership have led to Americans of all ages asking, How did we get here? The power to change lies with the citizens of this great country--especially teens Rather than pointing fingers at people and political parties, You Call This Democracy? looks at flaws in the system--and offers a real way out of the mess we are in. Each chapter breaks down a different problem plaguing American democracy, exploring how it's undemocratic, offering possible solutions (with examples of real-life teens who have already started working toward them), and suggesting ways to effect change--starting NOW
Book Synopsis Against Democracy by : Jason Brennan
Download or read book Against Democracy written by Jason Brennan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bracingly provocative challenge to one of our most cherished ideas and institutions Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. But Jason Brennan says they are all wrong. In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results—and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant and the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse—more irrational, biased, and mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government—epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable—may be better than democracy, and that it's time to experiment and find out. A challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable, Against Democracy is essential reading for scholars and students of politics across the disciplines. Featuring a new preface that situates the book within the current political climate and discusses other alternatives beyond epistocracy, Against Democracy is a challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable.
