Author: Anne F. ThurstonPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 72
Book Description
The reader is sure to find this report an important contribution to the ongoing debate in the United States about U.S.-Sino relations.
Muddling Toward Democracy
Author: Anne F. ThurstonPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 72
Book Description
The reader is sure to find this report an important contribution to the ongoing debate in the United States about U.S.-Sino relations.
Muddling Toward Democracy
Author: Anne F. ThurstonPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 56
Book Description
Muddling Toward Democracy
Author: Anne F. ThurstonPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 72
Book Description
The reader is sure to find this report an important contribution to the ongoing debate in the United States about U.S.-Sino relations.
The Confidence Trap
Author: David RuncimanPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
Why democracies believe they can survive any crisis—and why that belief is so dangerous Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989. Throughout, the book pays close attention to the politicians and thinkers who grappled with these crises: from Woodrow Wilson, Nehru, and Adenauer to Fukuyama and Obama. In The Confidence Trap, David Runciman shows that democracies are good at recovering from emergencies but bad at avoiding them. The lesson democracies tend to learn from their mistakes is that they can survive them—and that no crisis is as bad as it seems. Breeding complacency rather than wisdom, crises lead to the dangerous belief that democracies can muddle through anything—a confidence trap that may lead to a crisis that is just too big to escape, if it hasn't already. The most serious challenges confronting democracy today are debt, the war on terror, the rise of China, and climate change. If democracy is to survive them, it must figure out a way to break the confidence trap.
Muddling Towards Democracy
Author: Anne F. ThurstonDemocracy: Clarifying the Muddle
Author: Howard BurtonPublisher: Open Agenda Publishing
ISBN: 1771700416
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 37
Book Description
This book is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and renowned political theorist John Dunn, University of Cambridge. Through an engaging dialogue format, John Dunn candidly shares his deep insights on the historical development and current significance and future of democracy in different parts of the world and the relevance of political science departments in achieving democracy and other worthwhile goals. This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, Democratic Daze, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: I. Illusions and Confusions - Unmasking American stereotypes II. Historical Examinations - The power of etymology III. Thinking Deeper - Minimizing political bads IV. Trust and Belief - Thinking critically V. China - Challenging Western ideals? VI. India - The world’s largest democracy VII. Power to the People - Overthrowing autocracy and what happens next VIII. Towards Progress - Why we should care about all of this IX. Professional Indulgence - Critically examining “political science” About Ideas Roadshow Conversations Series: This book is part of an expanding series of 100+ Ideas Roadshow conversations, each one presenting a wealth of candid insights from a leading expert in a relaxed and informal setting to give non-specialists a uniquely accessible window into frontline research and scholarship that wouldn't otherwise be encountered through standard lectures and textbooks. For other books in this series visit our website (https://ideas-on-film.com/ideasroadshow/).
Demagogue
Author: Michael SignerPublisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 0230618561
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
A demagogue is a tyrant who owes his initial rise to the democratic support of the masses. Huey Long, Hugo Chavez, and Moqtada al-Sadr are all clear examples of this dangerous byproduct of democracy. Demagogue takes a long view of the fight to defend democracy from within, from the brutal general Cleon in ancient Athens, the demagogues who plagued the bloody French Revolution, George W. Bush's naïve democratic experiment in Iraq, and beyond. This compelling narrative weaves stories about some of history's most fascinating figures, including Adolf Hitler, Senator Joe McCarthy, and General Douglas Macarthur, and explains how humanity's urge for liberty can give rise to dark forces that threaten that very freedom. To find the solution to democracy's demagogue problem, the book delves into the stories of four great thinkers who all personally struggled with democracy--Plato, Alexis de Tocqueville, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt.
How To Be Depressed
Author: George ScialabbaPublisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812252012
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
George Scialabba is a prolific critic and essayist known for his incisive, wide-ranging commentary on literature, philosophy, religion, and politics. He is also, like millions of others, a lifelong sufferer from clinical depression. In How To Be Depressed, Scialabba presents an edited selection of his mental health records spanning decades of treatment, framed by an introduction and an interview with renowned podcaster Christopher Lydon. The book also includes a wry and ruminative collection of "tips for the depressed," organized into something like a glossary of terms—among which are the names of numerous medications he has tried or researched over the years. Together, these texts form an unusual, searching, and poignant hybrid of essay and memoir, inviting readers into the hospital and the therapy office as Scialabba and his caregivers try to make sense of this baffling disease. In Scialabba's view, clinical depression amounts to an "utter waste." Unlike heart surgery or a broken leg, there is no relaxing convalescence and nothing to be learned (except, perhaps, who your friends are). It leaves you weakened and bewildered, unsure why you got sick or how you got well, praying that it never happens again but certain that it will. Scialabba documents his own struggles and draws from them insights that may prove useful to fellow-sufferers and general readers alike. In the place of dispensable banalities—"Hold on," "You will feel better," and so on—he offers an account of how it's been for him, in the hope that doing so might prove helpful to others.
Chinese Democracy after Tiananmen
Author: Yijiang DingPublisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774842105
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185
Book Description
In 1989, most observers believed that China's political reform process had been violently short-circuited, but few would now dispute that China is in a very important transition. Central to this transition has been an extraordinary change in the formal intellectual conception of 'democracy.' In this book, Yijiang Ding presents a multi-dimensional picture of China at the political crossroads. Chinese Democracy looks at the significant change in the state-society relationship in contemporary China in three interrelated areas: intellectual, social, and cultural. Drawing heavily on recent Chinese scholarship, Ding shows that the emergent theory on the dualism of state and society is contemporaneous with a new cognitive and cultural appreciation of the people's independence from state authority. Is China moving toward liberal democracy? Does Western engagement with China contribute economically and politically to this shift? These are the questions at the heart of the book. Which are especially timely, given the recent reconstruction of political regimes worldwide.
The Dictator's Learning Curve
Author: William J. DobsonPublisher: Anchor
ISBN: 030747755X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
In this riveting anatomy of authoritarianism, acclaimed journalist William Dobson takes us inside the battle between dictators and those who would challenge their rule. Recent history has seen an incredible moment in the war between dictators and democracy—with waves of protests sweeping Syria and Yemen, and despots falling in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. But the Arab Spring is only the latest front in a global battle between freedom and repression, a battle that, until recently, dictators have been winning hands-down. The problem is that today’s authoritarians are not like the frozen-in-time, ready-to-crack regimes of Burma and North Korea. They are ever-morphing, technologically savvy, and internationally connected, and have replaced more brutal forms of intimidation with subtle coercion. The Dictator’s Learning Curve explains this historic moment and provides crucial insight into the fight for democracy.