The Future of Local Self-Government


Book Description

This book presents new research results on the challenges of local politics in different European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and Switzerland, together with theoretical considerations on the further development and strengthening of local self-government. It focuses on analyses of the most recent developments in local democracy and administration.




Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government


Book Description

The book analyzes the sources of widespread dissatisfaction with democracies around the world and identifies directions for feasible reforms.







Self-governing Socialism: Historical development. Social and political philosophy


Book Description

First published in 1975. VOLUME ONE covers Historical Development Social and Political Philosophy. No study or collection of material approaching self-government as a worldwide phenomenon and dealing with all The purpose of the present Reader is to fill this gap. This Reader traces the development self-government as a worldwide phenomenon and dealing with all This Reader traces the development of self-government from its beginnings as an apparently utopian idea of a handful of visionaries a century and a half ago to its implementation on a national scale in the contemporary world. All fundamental aspects of this development are dealt with--historical, philosophical, sociological, political, and economic. Contributions from some twenty countries are included. Several synthetic papers have been written especially for this book; because of their inclusion, as well as the comprehensiveness of the book's coverage, this work transcends the usual confines of a reader.The edtiors' goal was to assemble all important contributions of historical and theoretical value in one book.




Bureaucracy and Self-Government


Book Description

A thorough update to this well-regarded political history of American public administration. In this new edition of his provocative book Bureaucracy and Self-Government, Brian J. Cook reconsiders his thesis regarding the inescapable tension between the ideal of self-government and the reality of administratively centered governance. Revisiting his historical exploration of competing conceptions of politics, government, and public administration, Cook offers a novel way of thinking constitutionally about public administration that transcends debates about “big government.” Cook enriches his historical analysis with new scholarship and extends that analysis to the present, taking account of significant developments since the mid-1990s. Each chapter has been updated, and two new chapters sharpen Cook’s argument for recognizing a constitutive dimension in normative theorizing about public administration. The second edition also includes reviews of Jeffersonian impacts on administrative theory and practice and Jacksonian developments in national administrative structures and functions, a look at the administrative theorizing that presaged progressive reforms in civil service, and insight into the confounding complexities that characterize public thinking about administration in a postmodern political order.




Nationalism and Self-Government


Book Description

Scotland and Catalonia, both ancient nations with strong nationalisms within larger states, are exemplars of the management of ethnic conflict in multinational democracies and of global trends toward regional government. Focusing on these two countries, Scott L. Greer explores why nationalist mobilization arose when it did and why it stopped at autonomy rather than statehood. He challenges the notion that national identity or institutional design explains their relative success as stable multinational democracies and argues that the key is their strong regional societies and their regional organizations' preferences for autonomy and environmental stability




I, Citizen


Book Description

This is a story of hope, but also of peril. It began when our nation’s polarized political class started conscripting everyday citizens into its culture war. From their commanding heights in political parties, media, academia, and government, these partisans have attacked one another for years, but increasingly they’ve convinced everyday Americans to join the fray. Why should we feel such animosity toward our fellow citizens, our neighbors, even our own kin? Because we’ve fallen for the false narrative, eagerly promoted by pundits on the Left and the Right, that citizens who happen to vote Democrat or Republican are enthusiastic supporters of Team Blue or Team Red. Aside from a minority of party activists and partisans, however, most voters are simply trying to choose the lesser of two evils. The real threat to our union isn’t Red vs. Blue America, it’s the quiet collusion within our nation’s political class to take away that most American of freedoms: our right to self-governance. Even as partisans work overtime to divide Americans against one another, they’ve erected a system under which we ordinary citizens don’t have a voice in the decisions that affect our lives. From foreign wars to how local libraries are run, authority no longer resides with We the People, but amongst unaccountable officials. The political class has stolen our birthright and set us at one another’s throats. This is the story of how that happened and what we can do about it. America stands at a precipice, but there’s still time to reclaim authority over our lives and communities.







The Complexity of Self Government


Book Description

The Complexity of Self Government represents a revolutionary approach to political science. Bottom-up theory turns political and social analysis upside down by focusing analytic attention not on vacuous abstractions but on the individual men and women who either consciously or inadvertently create the institutions within which they live. Understanding this practical level of human activity is made possible through complexity theory, recently developed in computer models, but of wider use in understanding everyday human behaviour. To this complexity framework, the book adds social science to give life and colour to the analytical picture: micro-sociology from Garfinkel and Goffman, anthropology from Bourdieu, and non-technical game theory based on Thomas Schelling's microanalytics, to give rigour and bite. Theoretical examples include India's Mumbai, Iran, the marshes of southern Iraq, Berlusconi's Italy, backcountry China, Zimbabwe, and Nelson Mandela's revolution in South Africa.