Architecture of a Technodemocracy (Treatise Edition)


Book Description

The world is primed for radical changes in government where each of us has an equal voice and all are held accountable. AOAT provides a detailed blueprint on how to use current government processes, communication systems, and blockchain security to end political party systems and enable the next step in the evolution of human government.




Data Publics


Book Description

Data has emerged as a key component that determines how interactions across the world are structured, mediated and represented. This book examines these new data publics and the areas in which they become operative, via analysis of politics, geographies, environments and social media platforms. By claiming to offer a mechanism to translate every conceivable occurrence into an abstract code that can be endlessly manipulated, digitally processed data has caused conventional reference systems which hinge on our ability to mark points of origin, to rapidly implode. Authors from a range of disciplines provide insights into such a political economy of data capitalism; the political possibilities of techno-logics beyond data appropriation and data refusal; questions of visual, spatial and geographical organization; emergent ways of life and the environments that sustain them; and the current challenges of data publics, which is explored via case studies of three of the most influential platforms in the social media economy today: Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. Data Publics will be of great interest to academics and students in the fields of computer science, philosophy, sociology, media and communication studies, architecture, visual culture, art and design, and urban and cultural studies.




Architecture of a Technodemocracy


Book Description

The world is primed for radical changes in government where each of us has an equal voice and all are held accountable. AOAT provides a detailed blueprint on how to use current government processes, communication systems, and blockchain security to end political party systems and enable the next step in the evolution of human government.




Network Practices


Book Description

The twin revolutions of the global economy and omnipresent Internet connectivity have had a profound impact on architectural design. Geographical gaps and, in many cases, architecture's tie to the built world itself have evaporated in the face of our new networked society. Form is now conceptualized by architects, engineers, and artists as reflexive, contingent, and distributed. The collected essays in Network Practices capture this unique moment in the evolution of design, where crossing disciplines, spatial interactions, and design practices are all poised to be reimagined. With contributions by architects, artists, computer programmers, and theorists and texts by Reinhold Martin, Dagmar Richter, Michael Speaks, and others, Network Practices offers an interdisciplinary analysis of how art, science, and architecture are responding to rapidly changing mobile, wireless, and information embedded environments




The New Technocracy


Book Description

The rise of populist parties and movements across the Western hemisphere and their contempt for ‘experts’ has shocked the establishment. This book examines how the ‘post-industrial’ technocratic regime of the 1980’s – of managerialism, depoliticisation and the politics of expertise – sowed the seeds for the backlash against the political elites that is visible today. Populism, Esmark augues, is a sign that the technocratic bluff has finally been called and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exasperate existing problems. This book sets a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, showing that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation.




New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen


Book Description

A critical assessment of the role that information technologies have come to play in contemporary campaigns.




Political Handbook of the World 2016-2017


Book Description

Published since 1928, the Political Handbook of the World provides timely, thorough, and accurate political information with more in-depth coverage of current political controversies and political parties than any other reference guide. The updated 2016–2017 Edition continues this legacy as the most authoritative source for finding complete facts and analysis on each country’s governmental and political makeup. Political science and international relations scholars have revised this edition, and made understanding complex foreign affairs andpolitical situations easy and accessible. With more than 200 entries on countries and territories throughout the world, housed in one place, these volumes are renowned for their extensive coverage of all major and minor political parties and groups in each political system. They also provide names of key ambassadors and international memberships of each country, plus detailed profiles of more than 30 intergovernmental organizations and United Nations agencies. This comprehensive update will include coverage of current events, issues, crises, and controversies from the course of the last two years, including: The closely-watched U.S. presidential election The effect of the Brexit referendum and installment of a new British prime minister The extensive investigation and subsequent impeachment of Brazil’s president The far-reaching impact of the “Panama Papers” scandal Changes in U.S.–Cuba diplomatic relations and the reopening of their embassies The unconstitutional declaration of Gambia as an Islamic State Sentiments about the migrant and refugee crisis across Europe and the influence on policy Also, the new “For Further Reference” feature included for every country entry directs readers to additional resources to continue their research.




Empowered Participation


Book Description

Every month in every neighborhood in Chicago, residents, teachers, school principals, and police officers gather to deliberate about how to improve their schools and make their streets safer. Residents of poor neighborhoods participate as much or more as those from wealthy ones. All voices are heard. Since the meetings began more than a dozen years ago, they have led not only to safer streets but also to surprising improvements in the city's schools. Chicago's police department and school system have become democratic urban institutions unlike any others in America. Empowered Participation is the compelling chronicle of this unprecedented transformation. It is the first comprehensive empirical analysis of the ways in which participatory democracy can be used to effect social change. Using city-wide data and six neighborhood case studies, the book explores how determined Chicago residents, police officers, teachers, and community groups worked to banish crime and transform a failing city school system into a model for educational reform. The author's conclusion: Properly designed and implemented institutions of participatory democratic governance can spark citizen involvement that in turn generates innovative problem-solving and public action. Their participation makes organizations more fair and effective. Though the book focuses on Chicago's municipal agencies, its lessons are applicable to many American cities. Its findings will prove useful not only in the fields of education and law enforcement, but also to sectors as diverse as environmental regulation, social service provision, and workforce development.




Entrepreneurship for Everyone


Book Description

′Innovative, well organised, readable and authoritative. This is a text that takes a modern and refreshing approach to a subject that is an essential ingredient on today′s economic agenda′ - Graham Beaver, Professor of Strategic Management, Visiting Professor to Queensland University of Technology, Fellow of the University of Warwick Not everyone who wants to study entrepreneurship has a theoretical background in business. Specifically written for students who do not have a strong business theory background, the authors of Entrepreneurship for Everyone bring alive the crucial issues for understanding this dynamic field. Going beyond the traditional textbook, the authors equip students with the necessary business knowledge and essential practical advice on applying that knowledge in the real world, to a range of types of industry - from sustainable industries, information technology, healthcare, biotechnology, as well as the musical and creative industries. Key entrepreneurship concepts that are covered include: - the theories and tools of creative thinking - market research - intellectual property protection - relevant economics If you are coming to this area anew, and especially if you are interested in how entrepreneurship is applied, putting this text back on the shelf could cost you real success.




The Authoritarian Interlude


Book Description

What do we value as a political virtue? What are the core values of democracy in the modern era? What is a democratic culture and can it coexist with a predatory capitalist corporatism? Is democracy just about human rights? What is the nature of public dissent? These are some of the questions posed in this book as Peter Marden extends debates on democracy by critically examining the key role of values often associated with neo-liberalism and the traditions of thought concerning public conceptions of democratic life. Within the volume various normative arguments from prominent political theorists are addressed, particularly those associated with deliberative approaches to the study of contemporary democracy. Marden is motivated by an interest in the language and spirit of democracy as a values-based culture not solely driven by technocratic devices but a genuine reframing of the values necessary to underpin any peculiar democratic practice. Throughout the book examples are taken from the Australian, United Kingdom, and United States democratic experience post-9/11 to explore the dimensions of democratic culture, the nuanced tensions between the individual as an autonomous reflective subject and conceptions of the common good.