Author : Anne Larason Schneider
Publisher : Lawrence : University Press of Kansas
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 32,58 MB
Release : 1997
Category : Democracy
ISBN : 9780700608430
A theoretical work on how democracy can be improved when people are disenchanted with government. It summarizes four current approaches to policy theory - pluralism, policy sciences, public choice, and critical theory - and shows how none offer more than a partial view of policy design.
Author : Marcia Lausen
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 189 pages
File Size : 42,32 MB
Release : 2008-11-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0226470636
In November 2000, when the now-infamous "butterfly ballot" confused crucial Florida voters during a hotly contested presidential race, the importance of well-designed ballots to a functioning democracy caught the nation's attention. Recognizing that our entire voting process—from registering to vote to following instructions at the polling place—can be almost as confusing as the Florida ballot, Design for Democracy builds on the lessons of 2000 by presenting innovative steps for redesigning elections in the service of citizens. Handsomely designed itself, this volume showcases adaptable design models that can improve almost every part of the election process by maximizing the clarity and usability of ballots, registration forms, posters and signs, informational brochures and guides, and even administrative materials for poll workers. Design for Democracy also lays out specific guidelines—covering issues of color palette, typography, and image use—that anchor the comprehensive election design system devised by the group of design specialists from whose name the book takes its title. Part of a major AIGA strategic program, this group's prototypes and recommendations have already been used successfully in major Illinois and Oregon elections and, collected here, are likely to spread across the country as more people become aware of the myriad benefits and broad applicability of improved election design. An essential tool for designers and election officials, lawmakers and citizens, Design for Democracy harnesses the power of design to increase voter confidence, promote government transparency, and, perhaps most important, create an informed electorate.
Author : Carl Disalvo
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 235 pages
File Size : 22,41 MB
Release : 2022-02-08
Category : Design
ISBN : 0262368951
Through practices of collaborative imagination and making, or "doing design otherwise,” design experiments can contribute to keeping local democracies vibrant. In this counterpoint to the grand narratives of design punditry, Carl DiSalvo presents what he calls “doing design otherwise.” Arguing that democracy requires constant renewal and care, he shows how designers can supply novel contributions to local democracy by drawing together theory and practice, making and reflection. The relentless pursuit of innovation, uncritical embrace of the new and novel, and treatment of all things as design problems, says DiSalvo, can lead to cultural imperialism. In Design as Democratic Inquiry, he recounts a series of projects that exemplify engaged design in practice. These experiments in practice-based research are grounded in collaborations with communities and institutions. The projects DiSalvo describes took place from 2014 to 2019 in Atlanta. Rather than presume that government, industry—or academia—should determine the outcome, the designers began with the recognition that the residents and local organizations were already creative and resourceful. DiSalvo uses the projects to show how design might work as a mode of inquiry. Resisting heroic stories of design and innovation, he argues for embracing design as fragile, contingent, partial, and compromised. In particular, he explores how design might be leveraged to facilitate a more diverse civic imagination. A fundamental tenet of design is that the world is made, and therefore it could be made differently. A key concept is that democracy requires constant renewal and care. Thus, designing becomes a way to care, together, for our collective future.
Author : Jennifer Forestal
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 233 pages
File Size : 10,99 MB
Release : 2021
Category : Computers
ISBN : 0197568750
"How should we 'fix' digital technologies to support democracy instead of undermining it? In Designing for democracy, Jennifer Forestal argues that accurately evaluating the democratic potential of digital spaces means studying how the built environment-a primary component of our 'modern public square'-structures our activity, shapes our attitudes, and supports the kinds of relationships and behaviors democracy requires. Through extended analyses of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, Forestal shows precisely how well these digital platforms meet the criteria for democratic spaces, or whether they do so at all. The result is a more nuanced analysis of the democratic communities that form-or fail to emerge-in these spaces, as well as more concrete suggestions for how to improve them."--Page 4 of cover
Author : B. Guy Peters
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 23,45 MB
Release : 2018-07-27
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1786431351
Public policy can be considered a design science. It involves identifying relevant problems, selecting instruments to address the problem, developing institutions for managing the intervention, and creating means of assessing the design. Policy design has become an increasingly challenging task, given the emergence of numerous ‘wicked’ and complex problems. Much of policy design has adopted a technocratic and engineering approach, but there is an emerging literature that builds on a more collaborative and prospective approach to design. This book will discuss these issues in policy design and present alternative approaches to design.
Author : Maziar Rezai
Publisher : Birkhäuser
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 26,51 MB
Release : 2021-04-19
Category : Design
ISBN : 3035622833
Design affects all social contexts and is therefore intensively instrumentalized both by the politically powerful and their critics. Both functions of design, and their inevitable combination, are presented in this book in precise detail. Authors from various countries present previously unknown and innovative examples of democratic activities conducted through design. This publication is therefore aimed not only at design professionals but also at the general public of all countries.
Author : Adrian Vermeule
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 42,73 MB
Release : 2007-07-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0199745099
What institutional arrangements should a well-functioning constitutional democracy have? Most of the relevant literatures in law, political science, political theory, and economics address this question by discussing institutional design writ large. In this book, Adrian Vermeule moves beyond these debates, changing the focus to institutional design writ small. In established constitutional polities, Vermeule argues that law can and should - and to some extent already does - provide mechanisms of democracy: a repertoire of small-scale institutional devices and innovations that can have surprisingly large effects, promoting democratic values of impartial, accountable and deliberative government. Examples include legal rules that promote impartiality by depriving officials of the information they need to act in self-interested ways; voting rules that create the right kind and amount of accountability for political officials and judges; and legislative rules that structure deliberation, in part by adjusting the conditions under which deliberation occurs transparently or instead secretly. Drawing upon a range of social science tools from economics, political science, and other disciplines, Vermeule carefully describes the mechanisms of democracy and indicates the conditions under which they can succeed.
Author : Anne Larason Schneider
Publisher : Lawrence : University Press of Kansas
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 27,57 MB
Release : 1997
Category : Democracy
ISBN : 9780700608447
A theoretical work on how democracy can be improved when people are disenchanted with government. It summarizes four current approaches to policy theory - pluralism, policy sciences, public choice, and critical theory - and shows how none offer more than a partial view of policy design.
Author : Larry Diamond
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 471 pages
File Size : 45,93 MB
Release : 2015-07-16
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1317411366
This book evaluates the global status and prospects of democracy, with an emphasis on the quality of democratic institutions and the effectiveness of governance as key conditions for stable democracy. Bringing together a wide range of the author’s work over the past three decades, it advances a framework for assessing the quality of democracy and it analyzes alternative measures of democracy. Drawing on the most recent data from Freedom House, it assesses the global state of democracy and freedom, as of the beginning of 2015, and it explains why the world has been experiencing a mild but now deepening recession of democracy and freedom since 2005. A major theme of the book across the three decades of the author’s work is the relationship between democratic quality and stability. Democracies break down, Diamond argues, not so much because of economic factors but because of corrupt, inept governance that violates individual rights and the rule of law. The best way to secure democracy is to ensure that democracy is accountable, transparent, genuinely competitive, respectful of individual rights, inclusive of diverse forms and sources of participation, and responsive to the needs and aspirations of ordinary citizens. Viable democracy requires not only a state that can mobilize power to achieve collective goals, but also one that can restrain and punish the abuse of power—a particularly steep challenge for poor countries and those with natural resource wealth. The book examines these themes both in broad comparative perspective and with a deeper analysis of historical trends and future prospects in Africa and Asia,. Concluding with lessons for sustaining and reforming policies to promote democracy internationally, this book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in democracy, as well as politics and international relations more generally.
Author : Ethan J. Leib
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 17,38 MB
Release : 2010-11-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780271045290
We are taught in civics class that the Constitution provides for three basic branches of government: executive, judicial, and legislative. While the President and Congress as elected by popular vote are representative, can they really reflect accurately the will and sentiment of the populace? Or do money and power dominate everyday politics to the detriment of true self-governance? Is there a way to put &"We the people&" back into government? Ethan Leib thinks there is and offers this blueprint for a fourth branch of government as a way of giving the people a voice of their own. While drawing on the rich theoretical literature about deliberative democracy, Leib concentrates on designing an institutional scheme for embedding deliberation in the practice of American democratic government. At the heart of his scheme is a process for the adjudication of issues of public policy by assemblies of randomly selected citizens convened to debate and vote on the issues, resulting in the enactment of laws subject both to judicial review and to possible veto by the executive and legislative branches. The &"popular&" branch would fulfill a purpose similar to the ballot initiative and referendum but avoid the shortcomings associated with those forms of direct democracy. Leib takes special pains to show how this new branch would be integrated with the already existing governmental and political institutions of our society, including administrative agencies and political parties, and would thus complement rather than supplant them.
