Think Tanks The Marketplace Of Ideas And Democracy

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Think Tanks and Civil Societies

Author : R. Weaver
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351472119
Total Pages : 1006 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis Think Tanks and Civil Societies by : R. Weaver

Download or read book Think Tanks and Civil Societies written by R. Weaver and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 1006 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government and individual policymakers throughout the developed and developing world face the common problem of bringing expert knowledge to bear in government decision making. Policymakers need understandable, reliable, accessible, and useful information about the societies they govern. They also need to know how current policies are working, as well as possible alternatives and their likely costs and consequences. This expanding need has fostered the growth of independent public policy research organizations, commonly known as think tanks. Think Tanks and Civil Societies analyzes their growth, scope, and constraints, while providing institutional profiles of such organizations in every region of the world.Beginning with North America, contributors analyze think tank development past and future, consider their relationship to the general political culture, and provide detailed looks at such examples as the Heritage Foundation and the Institute for Research on Public Policy. A historical and subregional overview of think tanks throughout Europe notes the emphasis on European Union issues and points to a dramatic rise in the number and influence of free market institutes across the continent. Think tanks in Germany, Spain, and France are profiled with respect to national politics and cultures. Advanced industrial nations of northern Asia are compared and contrasted, revealing a greater need for independent policy voices. Moving to countries undergoing economic transition, contributors deal with challenges posed in Russia and the former Soviet bloc and their think tanks' search for influence, independence, and sustainability. Other chapters deal with the developing countries of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, finding that the number, quality, and independence of think tanks is largely determined by the degree of democracy in individual nations.

Do Think Tanks Matter?

Author : Donald E. Abelson
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN 13 : 0773575413
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (735 download)

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Book Synopsis Do Think Tanks Matter? by : Donald E. Abelson

Download or read book Do Think Tanks Matter? written by Donald E. Abelson and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2009-09 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assessing the evolution and influence of public policy institutes.

Think Tank

Author : Madsen Pirie
Publisher : Biteback Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1849543151
Total Pages : 177 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (495 download)

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Book Synopsis Think Tank by : Madsen Pirie

Download or read book Think Tank written by Madsen Pirie and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1970s, as the country's post-war love affair with socialism began to sour, a new type of think tank opened its doors in Britain. Spearheading a rejection of state planning and controls, the Adam Smith Institute helped to put incentives and enterprise firmly back into the political mainstream. Its influence was extraordinary, even revolutionary. Britain's new passwords became opportunity, aspiration and the free market. With no backing and no resources save their own conviction, a handful of motivated individuals managed to play a role in transforming the prospects of a nation. This is their story.

Right Moves

Author : Jason Stahl
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469627876
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis Right Moves by : Jason Stahl

Download or read book Right Moves written by Jason Stahl and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-03-04 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the middle of the twentieth century, think tanks have played an indelible role in the rise of American conservatism. Positioning themselves against the alleged liberal bias of the media, academia, and the federal bureaucracy, conservative think tanks gained the attention of politicians and the public alike and were instrumental in promulgating conservative ideas. Yet, in spite of the formative influence these institutions have had on the media and public opinion, little has been written about their history. Here, Jason Stahl offers the first sustained investigation of the rise and historical development of the conservative think tank as a source of political and cultural power in the United States. What we now know as conservative think tanks--research and public-relations institutions populated by conservative intellectuals--emerged in the postwar period as places for theorizing and "selling" public policies and ideologies to both lawmakers and the public at large. Stahl traces the progression of think tanks from their outsider status against a backdrop of New Deal and Great Society liberalism to their current prominence as a counterweight to progressive political institutions and thought. By examining the rise of the conservative think tank, Stahl makes invaluable contributions to our historical understanding of conservatism, public-policy formation, and capitalism.

The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy

Author : Michael Lewis
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1324002654
Total Pages : 137 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy by : Michael Lewis

Download or read book The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy written by Michael Lewis and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times Bestseller, with a new afterword "[Michael Lewis’s] most ambitious and important book." —Joe Klein, New York Times Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative of the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed. The government manages a vast array of critical services that keep us safe and underpin our lives from ensuring the safety of our food and drugs and predicting extreme weather events to tracking and locating black market uranium before the terrorists do. The Fifth Risk masterfully and vividly unspools the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works.

Rank Hypocrisies

Author : Derek Sayer
Publisher : SAGE
ISBN 13 : 1473910641
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (739 download)

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Book Synopsis Rank Hypocrisies by : Derek Sayer

Download or read book Rank Hypocrisies written by Derek Sayer and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2014-12-03 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In crystalline text steeped in cold rage, Sayer takes aim at the REF’s central claim, that it is a legitimate process of expert peer review. He critiques university and national-level REF processes against actual practices of scholarly review as found in academic journals, university presses, and North American tenure procedures. His analysis is damning. If the REF fails as scholarly review, how can academics and universities continue to participate? And how can government use its rankings as a basis for public policy?" - Tarak Barkawi, London School of Economics "Sayer makes a compelling argument that the Research Excellence Framework is not only expensive and divisive, but is also deeply flawed as an evaluation exercise. Rank Hypocrisies is a rigorous and scholarly evaluation of the REF, yet written in a lively and engaging style that makes it highly readable." - Dorothy Bishop, University of Oxford Few decisions are as consequential for the funding and reputation of Britain′s universities as those of REF panels. Not only do REF rankings determine the levels of research funding universities receive from the state. They equally affect institutions′ ability to attract external grants, top-flight faculty, and graduate students. Whatever benefit the UK′s periodic research assessment exercises may have brought to research productivity, the REF has been widely criticized for its enormous costs in taxpayers′ money and academics′ time, its discouragement of innovative (and especially interdisciplinary) research, and its negative effects on collegiality and staff morale. Derek Sayer extends these arguments, notably through his discussion of the questionable staff selection processes used in REF2014 within his own university. Where Rank Hypocrisies goes beyond previous critiques is in its open challenge to the REF′s claim to provide ′expert review of the outputs′ - the very heart of its legitimacy. Examining the composition and operation of REF disciplinary subpanels in forensic detail, Sayer paints a picture in which overburdened assessors assign vaguely defined grades in fields that are frequently not their own while ignoring all external indicators of the academic influence of the publications they are appraising, and then shred all records of their deliberations. Judged against international norms of peer review, the REF is an elaborate charade - and an insult to the core values of the academy.

Freedom in the World 2018

Author : Freedom House
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538112035
Total Pages : 1265 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (381 download)

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Book Synopsis Freedom in the World 2018 by : Freedom House

Download or read book Freedom in the World 2018 written by Freedom House and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 1265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.

Against Democracy

Author : Jason Brennan
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400888395
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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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.

The Politics Industry

Author : Katherine M. Gehl
Publisher : Harvard Business Press
ISBN 13 : 1633699242
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (336 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics Industry by : Katherine M. Gehl

Download or read book The Politics Industry written by Katherine M. Gehl and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading political innovation activist Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter bring fresh perspective, deep scholarship, and a real and actionable solution, Final Five Voting, to the grand challenge of our broken political and democratic system. Final Five Voting has already been adopted in Alaska and is being advanced in states across the country. The truth is, the American political system is working exactly how it is designed to work, and it isn't designed or optimized today to work for us—for ordinary citizens. Most people believe that our political system is a public institution with high-minded principles and impartial rules derived from the Constitution. In reality, it has become a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly—the Democrats and the Republicans—and plagued and perverted by unhealthy competition between the players. Tragically, it has therefore become incapable of delivering solutions to America's key economic and social challenges. In fact, there's virtually no connection between our political leaders solving problems and getting reelected. In The Politics Industry, business leader and path-breaking political innovator Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter take a radical new approach. They ingeniously apply the tools of business analysis—and Porter's distinctive Five Forces framework—to show how the political system functions just as every other competitive industry does, and how the duopoly has led to the devastating outcomes we see today. Using this competition lens, Gehl and Porter identify the most powerful lever for change—a strategy comprised of a clear set of choices in two key areas: how our elections work and how we make our laws. Their bracing assessment and practical recommendations cut through the endless debate about various proposed fixes, such as term limits and campaign finance reform. The result: true political innovation. The Politics Industry is an original and completely nonpartisan guide that will open your eyes to the true dynamics and profound challenges of the American political system and provide real solutions for reshaping the system for the benefit of all. THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL INNOVATION The authors will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Institute for Political Innovation.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Nonprofits and the Social Sectors (featuring "What Business Can Learn from Nonprofits" by Peter F. Drucker)

Download HBR's 10 Must Reads on Nonprofits and the Social Sectors (featuring

Author : Harvard Business Review
Publisher : Harvard Business Press
ISBN 13 : 163369691X
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (336 download)

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Book Synopsis HBR's 10 Must Reads on Nonprofits and the Social Sectors (featuring "What Business Can Learn from Nonprofits" by Peter F. Drucker) by : Harvard Business Review

Download or read book HBR's 10 Must Reads on Nonprofits and the Social Sectors (featuring "What Business Can Learn from Nonprofits" by Peter F. Drucker) written by Harvard Business Review and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nonprofits and the social sectors are taking on an increasing share of the world's most vital work. Make sure your organization is ready for the challenge. If you read nothing else on nonprofits and the social sectors, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you align your organization's mission and strategy, deliver immediate impact, and create lasting change. This book will inspire you to: Choose the right problem to solve Understand when the best practices of for-profits don't apply Assemble an engaged and goal-driven board of directors Make the most of for-profit initiatives and corporate partnerships Drive demand, scale up, and be ready to change course Learn from the success stories of the world's most respected nonprofit leaders This collection of articles includes "Lofty Missions, Down-to-Earth Plans," by V. Kasturi Rangan; "What Business Can Learn from Nonprofits," by Peter F. Drucker; "Life's Work: An Interview with Desmond Tutu"; "Are You Solving the Right Problem?" by Dwayne Spradlin; "Life's Work: An Interview with George Mitchell"; "Enterprising Nonprofits," by J. Gregory Dees; "Life's Work: An Interview with Wynton Marsalis"; "State Street's CEO on Creating Employment for At-Risk Youths," by Joseph Hooley; "Life's Work: An Interview with Salman Khan"; "Do Better at Doing Good," by V. Kasturi Rangan, Sohel Karim, and Sheryl K. Sandberg; "AEI's President on Measuring the Impact of Ideas," by Arthur C. Brooks; "Life's Work: An Interview with Michelle Bachelet"; "The New Work of the Nonprofit Board," by Barbara E. Taylor, Richard P. Chait, and Thomas P. Holland; "Life's Work: An Interview with Bill T. Jones"; "Reaching the World's Poorest Consumers," by Muhammad Yunus, Frederic Dalsace, David Menasce, and Benedicte Faivre-Tavignot; "Life's Work: An Interview with Muhammad Yunus"; and "Audacious Philanthropy: Lessons from 15 World-Changing Initiatives," by Susan Wolf Ditkoff and Abe Grindle.

Thinking Politics

Author : Jeffrey Puryear
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801848414
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (484 download)

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Book Synopsis Thinking Politics by : Jeffrey Puryear

Download or read book Thinking Politics written by Jeffrey Puryear and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because of Latin America's long history of military juntas, analysts who have studied regime change in the region have focused on political and military elites. In the recent case of Chile, however, the success of democratic transition can be credited in large part to the remarkable influence of intellectuals involved in public affairs. In Thinking Politics Jeffrey Puryear examines this unprecedented role played by intellectuals inChile's return to democracy. "Thinking Politics provides thorough coverage of an important but neglected topic by a uniquely qualified observer. Through his work with the Ford Foundation, Jeffrey Puryear had an unparalleled opportunity for an outside agent to witness the development of the social scientists of Chile and their impact on democratization. He tells the story well, he analyzes it in a way that could be relevant to other cases, and he presents the policy implications for support of the social sciences in less developed countries in a convincing manner." -- Paul W. Drake, University of California, San Diego "This first-rate work is accurate, original, and compelling. It addresses an important topic -- the relationship between ideas and politics -- that has seldom been analyzed in Latin America." -- JosA(c) JoaquA-n Brunner Ried, Facultad Latina Americana de Ciencias Sociales, Santiago, Chile.

The Power of Ideas

Author : Cheng Li
Publisher : World Scientific Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9789813100220
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis The Power of Ideas by : Cheng Li

Download or read book The Power of Ideas written by Cheng Li and published by World Scientific Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this fascinating study, leading American China scholar Cheng Li has written and compiled an unprecedented volume on China's rapidly growing community of think tanks. The study includes a thorough inventory of China's research institutions (government and private), and it offers compelling case studies of four leading public intellectuals. But the best part is Cheng Li's own deep insights into this community of thinkers and institutions, their relative strengths and weaknesses, and impact on China's domestic and foreign policies. This volume should be mandatory reading for all China specialists." David Shambaugh George Washington University and author of China's Future China's momentous socioeconomic transformation is not taking place in an intellectual vacuum: Chinese scholars and public intellectuals are actively engaged in fervent discussions about the country's domestic and foreign policies, demographic constraints, and ever-growing integration into the world community. This book focuses on China's major think tanks where policies are initiated, and on a few prominent thinkers who influence the way in which elites and the general public understand and deal with the various issues confronting the country. The book examines a number of factors contributing to the rapid rise of Chinese think tanks in the reform era. These include the leadership's call for "scientific decision-making," the need for specialized expertise in economics and finance as China becomes an economic powerhouse, the demand for opinion leaders in the wake of a telecommunication revolution driven by social media, the accumulation of human and financial capital, and the increasing utility of the "revolving door" nature of think tanks. It has been widely noted that think tanks and policy advisors have played an important role in influencing the strategic thinking of the top leadership, including the formation of ideas such as the "Three Represents," "China's peaceful rise," "One Belt, One Road," and the founding of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). In 2014, President Xi Jinping made think tank development a national strategy, and he claimed that "building a new type of think tank with Chinese characteristics is an important and pressing mission." Though the media outside China has often reported on this important development, it has all but escaped rigorous scholarly scrutiny. This book will categorize Chinese think tanks by their various forms, such as government agencies, university-based think tanks, private think tanks, business research centers or consultancies, and civil society groups. It will not only analyze the problems and challenges in China's think tank development, but also reveal the power of ideas.

The Autocratic Middle Class

Author : Bryn Rosenfeld
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691192197
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Autocratic Middle Class by : Bryn Rosenfeld

Download or read book The Autocratic Middle Class written by Bryn Rosenfeld and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The conventional wisdom is that a growing middle class will give rise to democracy. Yet the middle classes of the developing world have grown at a remarkable pace over the past two decades, and much of this growth has taken place in countries that remain nondemocratic. Rosenfeld explains this phenomenon by showing how modern autocracies secure support from key middle-class constituencies. Drawing on original surveys, interviews, archival documents, and secondary sources collected from nine months in the field, she compares the experiences of recent post-communist countries, including Russia, the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, to show that under autocracy, state efforts weaken support for democracy, especially among the middle class. When autocratic states engage extensively in their economies - by offering state employment, offering perks to those to those who are loyal, and threatening dismissal to those who are disloyal - the middle classes become dependent on the state for economic opportunities and career advancement, and, ultimately, do not support a shift toward democratization. Her argument explains why popular support for Ukraine's Orange Revolution unraveled or why Russians did not protest evidence of massive electoral fraud. The author's research questions the assumption that a rising share of educated, white-collar workers always makes the conditions for democracy more favorable, and why dependence on the state has such pernicious consequences for democratization"--

The Disinformation Age

Author : W. Lance Bennett
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108843050
Total Pages : 323 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis The Disinformation Age by : W. Lance Bennett

Download or read book The Disinformation Age written by W. Lance Bennett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how disinformation spread by partisan organizations and media platforms undermines institutional legitimacy on which authoritative information depends.

Policy Expertise in Contemporary Democracies

Author : Stephen Brooks
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317078969
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Policy Expertise in Contemporary Democracies by : Stephen Brooks

Download or read book Policy Expertise in Contemporary Democracies written by Stephen Brooks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the world of Wikipedia, blogging and citizen journalism where huge masses of information and the capability to disseminate opinions, thoughts and ideas is available at the click of a mouse what is the role and impact of political experts? The contributors to this insightful and original volume argue that across the western world in general, the political expert occupies as important a role today as at any time in the past. The ubiquity of information and the fact that the experts and the organizations to which they are affiliated may be viewed as having an ideological agenda has not diminished their role, influence or status. Governments and the media still rely on them for information and advice whilst organizations in civil society need them in order to provide the evidence, arguments and policy recommendations that are essential to having a voice in the public conversation. By examining how these policy experts and their think tanks continue to exert influence across a range of modern western democracies a better understanding of the role of policy expertise and an examination of how it may develop and evolve throughout the rest of the world is reached.

Democracy and Executive Power

Author : Susan Rose-Ackerman
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300262477
Total Pages : 421 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Democracy and Executive Power by : Susan Rose-Ackerman

Download or read book Democracy and Executive Power written by Susan Rose-Ackerman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A defense of regulatory agencies’ efforts to combine public consultation with bureaucratic expertise to serve the interest of all citizens The statutory delegation of rule-making authority to the executive has recently become a source of controversy. There are guiding models, but none, Susan Rose-Ackerman claims, is a good fit with the needs of regulating in the public interest. Using a cross-national comparison of public policy-making in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, she argues that public participation inside executive rule-making processes is necessary to preserve the legitimacy of regulatory policy-making.

Democracy and Truth

Author : Sophia Rosenfeld
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812250842
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Democracy and Truth by : Sophia Rosenfeld

Download or read book Democracy and Truth written by Sophia Rosenfeld and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fake news," wild conspiracy theories, misleading claims, doctored photos, lies peddled as facts, facts dismissed as lies—citizens of democracies increasingly inhabit a public sphere teeming with competing claims and counterclaims, with no institution or person possessing the authority to settle basic disputes in a definitive way. The problem may be novel in some of its details—including the role of today's political leaders, along with broadcast and digital media, in intensifying the epistemic anarchy—but the challenge of determining truth in a democratic world has a backstory. In this lively and illuminating book, historian Sophia Rosenfeld explores a longstanding and largely unspoken tension at the heart of democracy between the supposed wisdom of the crowd and the need for information to be vetted and evaluated by a learned elite made up of trusted experts. What we are witnessing now is the unraveling of the détente between these competing aspects of democratic culture. In four bracing chapters, Rosenfeld substantiates her claim by tracing the history of the vexed relationship between democracy and truth. She begins with an examination of the period prior to the eighteenth-century Age of Revolutions, where she uncovers the political and epistemological foundations of our democratic world. Subsequent chapters move from the Enlightenment to the rise of both populist and technocratic notions of democracy between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the troubling trends—including the collapse of social trust—that have led to the rise of our "post-truth" public life. Rosenfeld concludes by offering suggestions for how to defend the idea of truth against the forces that would undermine it.