Undemocratic


Book Description

Jay Sekulow—one of America’s most influential attorneys—explores a post Obama landscape where bureaucracy has taken over our government and provides a practical roadmap to help take back our personal liberties. Jay Sekulow is on a mission to defend Americans’ freedom. The fact is that freedom is under attack like never before. The threat comes from the fourth branch of government—the biggest branch—and the only branch not in the Constitution: the federal bureaucracy. The bureaucracy imposes thousands of new laws every year, without a single vote from Congress. The bureaucracy violates the rights of Americans without accountability—persecuting adoptive parents, denying veterans quality healthcare, discriminating against conservatives and Christians for partisan purposes, and damaging our economy with job-killing rules. Americans are bullied by the very institutions established to protect their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our nation’s bureaucrats are on an undemocratic power trip. But Sekulow has a plan to fight back. We can resist illegal abuse, we can reform a broken system, and we can restore American democracy. This book won’t just tell you how to win, it will show you real victories achieved by Sekulow and the American Center for Law and Justice. Unless we can roll back the fourth branch of govern­ment—the most dangerous branch—our elections will no longer matter. Undemocratic is a wake-up call, a call made at just the right time—before it’s too late to save the democracy we love.




Our Undemocratic Constitution


Book Description

Levinson here argues that too many of our Constitution's provisions promote either unjust or ineffective government. Under the existing blueprint, we can neither rid ourselves of incompetent presidents nor assure continuity of government following catastrophic attacks. Worse, our Constitution is the most difficult to amend or update in the world. Levinson boldly challenges the Americans to undertake a long overdue public discussion on how they might best reform this most hallowed document and construct a constitution adequate to our democratic values.




The Tainted Source


Book Description

An ideology is sweeping Europe and the world which threatens democracy and the rule of law. The post-national ideology, which posits that nation-states are no longer capable of running their own affairs in a modern, interdependent economy, confuses the constitution of a state with the power of its government, and ignores the importance of the sense of community essential to any democratic debate. A rigorous synthesis of historical and philosophical arguments, THE TAINTED SOURCE is a powerful appeal in favour of the constitutional foundations of the liberal order. Post-national structures - multinational companies, 'region-states' and supranational organisations such as the European Union - are corrosive of liberal values, to such an extent that John Laughland makes it devastatingly clear that the post-national ideology formed a crucial core of Nazi economic and political thinking. Like the European ideology of today, it was predicted on dissolving the nation-state and the liberal order.




Undemocratic


Book Description

"Updated with two new chapters" --Cover.




Militant Democracy


Book Description

The term ‘militant democracy’ was coined by Karl Loewenstein in the 1930s. He argued that attempts to establish democracy in the Weimar Republic failed due to the lack of militancy against subversive movements. The concept of militant democracy was introduced to legal scholarship and constitutional practice so as to provide democracy with legal means to defend itself against the range of possible activities of non-democratic political actors. This book offers a broad comparative look at the legal concept of militant democracy. It analyses both theoretical and substantive aspects of this concept, investigating its practice in a number of countries and on a diverse array of issues. Examining cases in Australia, Turkey, Spain, Germany, Israel, India, the USA, and the Council of Europe, Svetlana Tyulkina maps the historical development of militant democracy in constitutional theory and explores its interaction with various traditional and contemporary notions of democracy. The book analyses the possibilities and pitfalls of the concept of militant democracy when applied to protect democracy when it is under threat of harm or destruction by undemocratic actors, and suggests possible solutions and measures to overcome those dangers. In its evaluation of the capacity and justification for democracies to apply militant democracy measures, this book will be of great use and interest to students and scholars of public comparative constitutional law, international law, human rights law, and comparative politics.




Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime


Book Description

To survive, all forms of government require popular support, whether voluntary or involuntary. Following the collapse of the Soviet system, Russia's rulers took steps toward democracy, yet under Vladimir Putin Russia has become increasingly undemocratic. This book uses a unique source of evidence, eighteen surveys of Russian public opinion from the first month of the new regime in 1992 up to 2009, to track the changing views of Russians. Clearly presented and sophisticated figures and tables show how political support has increased because of a sense of resignation that is even stronger than the unstable benefits of exporting oil and gas. Whilst comparative analyses of surveys on other continents show that Russia's elite is not alone in being able to mobilize popular support for an undemocratic regime, Russia provides an outstanding caution that popular support can grow when governors reject democracy and create an undemocratic regime.




Anti-Press Violence in Subnational Undemocratic Regimes


Book Description

The global trend of increasing violence against the press has spurred research interest into the questions of where, why, and how communicators are repressed. As a result, scholarship has demonstrating that hybrid regimes - which mix undemocratic and democratic elements - constitute a specifically dangerous and lethal context for these actors. Decentralized countries, in which some subnational political elites have retained authoritarian features, have been identified as the most perilous context for communicators. However, despite the burgeoning interest in illiberal practices and repression on the subnational level, it is still relatively unexplored how and why subnational political elites repress communicators within their multi-level setting. The author argues that communicators in subnational undemocratic regimes who can spread the scope of compromising information beyond subnational boundaries can cause uncertainties for subnational undemocratic regimes. The book explores how the political elites of these regimes repress these communicators in response.




How Democratic Is the American Constitution?


Book Description

In this provocative book, one of our most eminent political scientists questions the extent to which the American Constitution furthers democratic goals. Robert Dahl reveals the Constitution's potentially antidemocratic elements and explains why they are there, compares the American constitutional system to other democratic systems, and explores how we might alter our political system to achieve greater equality among citizens. In a new chapter for this second edition, he shows how increasing differences in state populations revealed by the Census of 2000 have further increased the veto power over constitutional amendments held by a tiny minority of Americans. He then explores the prospects for changing some important political practices that are not prescribed by the written Constitution, though most Americans may assume them to be so.




Undemocratic Schooling


Book Description

-Half the boys living in working-class suburbs to the west and north of Melbourne fail mathematics. Why? -Why are so many young people leaving school early, when there are no jobs for them to go to? -Are boys disadvantaged at school in comparison with girls? -What makes good schools work? -Is the best university one that attracts the top students, or one that offers the best chances for lower-achieving students? This groundbreaking book is based on the largest social survey of secondary education ever undertaken in Australia. It presents a comprehensive picture of who succeeds and who fails at school. Undemocratic Schooling brings together a unique range of information on who our students are, what they want from school, how well they think their schools work, what subjects they study, how well they succeed, and where they end up. It also reveals their larger views on matters such as jobs, careers, marriage and family, the political system and social justice. In its imaginative presentation of the findings of this massive survey, this book sheds new light on inequalities in our education system. It reveals significant new information on: -students' achievements in relation to their attitudes and values -students' perspectives on issues from jobs to discrimination -students' destinations in relation to their backgrounds. The authors offer valuable angles on such topical issues as retention and dropout rates; the relation between poverty and achievement; the gender debate; private versus public schools; and which universities serve which social groups.




Democratic Institutions of Undemocratic Individuals


Book Description

This book carries out a systematic analysis of the effects of economic globalization on democratization. The author studies the labour institutions of Turkey and Argentina from three criteria of internal functioning, external participation, and structural organization.