There’s No Such Thing as Free Will
But we’re better off believing in it anyway.
STEPHEN CAVE JUNE 2016 ISSUE
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/480750/
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Free Will - Is it there for Animals and Humans?
There’s No Such Thing as Free Will
But we’re better off believing in it anyway.
STEPHEN CAVE JUNE 2016 ISSUE
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/480750/
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Psychology - Class XI - CBSE
You can download the NCERT Book from
http://ncertbooks.prashanthellina.com/class_11.Psychology.IntroductiontoPsychology/index.html
Psychology Class 11 Syllabus
Exam Structure
Unit Topic Marks
I What is Psychology? 7
II Methods of Enquiry in Psychology 10
III The Bases of Human Behaviour 8
IV Human Development 6
V Sensory, Attentional and Perceptual Processes 8
VI Learning 9
VII Human Memory 8
VIII Thinking 7
IX Motivation and Emotion 7
Total 70
Unit I: What is psychology?
Introduction
What is Psychology?
Psychology as a Discipline
Psychology as a Natural Science
Psychology as a Social Science
Understanding Mind and Behaviour
Popular Notions about the Discipline of Psychology
Evolution of Psychology
Development of Psychology in India
Branches of Psychology
Themes of Research and Applications
Psychology and Other Disciplines
Psychologists at Work
Psychology in Everyday Life
Unit II: Methods of Enquiry in Psychology
Introduction
Goals of Psychological Enquiry
Steps in Conducting Scientific Research
Alternative Paradigms of Research
Nature of Psychological Data
Some Important Methods in Psychology
Observational Method
Experimental Method
Correlational Research
Survey Research
Psychological Testing
Case Study
Analysis of Data
Quantitative Method
Qualitative Method
Limitations of Psychological Enquiry
Ethical Issues
Unit III: The Bases of Human Behaviour
Introduction
Evolutionary Perspective
Biological and Cultural Roots
Biological Basis of Behaviour
Neurons
Structure and Functions of Nervous System and
Endocrine System and their Relationship with
Behaviour and Experience
The Nervous System
The Endocrine System
Heredity: Genes and Behaviour
Cultural Basis : Socio-Cultural Shaping of Behaviour
Concept of Culture
Enculturation
Socialisation
Acculturation
Unit IV: Human Development
Introduction
Meaning of Development
Life-Span Perspective on Development
Factors Influencing Development
Context of Development
Overview of Developmental Stages
Prenatal Stage
Infancy
Childhood
Challenges of Adolescence
Adulthood and Old Age
Unit V: Sensory, Attentional, and Perceptual Processes
Introduction
Knowing the world
Nature and varieties of Stimulus
Sense Modalities
Visual Sensation
Auditory Sensation
Attentional Processes
Selective Attention
Sustained Attention
Perceptual Processes
Processing Approaches in Perception
The Perceiver
Principles of Perceptual Organisation
Perception of Space, Depth, and Distance
Monocular Cues and Binocular Cues
Perceptual Constancies
Illusions
Socio-Cultural Influences on Perception
Unit VI: Learning
Introduction
Nature of Learning
Paradigms of Learning
Classical Conditioning
Determinants of Classical Conditioning
Operant/Instrumental Conditioning
Determinants of Operant Conditioning
Key Learning Processes
Observational Learning
Cognitive Learning
Verbal Learning
Concept Learning
Skill Learning
Transfer of Learning
Factors Facilitating Learning
The Learner: Learning Styles
Learning Disabilities
Applications of Learning Principles
Unit VII: Human Memory
Introduction
Nature of memory
Information processing Approach: The Stage Model
Memory Systems : Sensory, Short-term and Long-term Memories
Levels of Processing
Types of Long-term Memory
Declarative and Procedural; Episodic and Semantic
Knowledge Representation and Organisation in Memory
Memory as a Constructive Process
Nature and Causes of Forgetting
Forgetting due to Trace Decay, Interference and Retrieval Failure
Enhancing Memory
Mnemonics using Images and Organisation
Unit VIII: Thinking
Introduction
Nature of Thinking
Building Blocks of Thought
The Processes of Thinking
Problem Solving
Reasoning
Decision-making
Nature and Process of Creative Thinking
Nature of Creative Thinking
Process of Creative Thinking
Developing Creative Thinking
Barriers to Creative Thinking
Strategies for Creative Thinking
Thought and Language
Development of Language and Language Use
Unit IX: Motivation and Emotion
Introduction
Nature of Motivation
Types of Motives
Biological Motives
Psychosocial Motives
Maslow‟s Hierarchy of Needs
Nature of Emotions
Physiological Bases of Emotions
Cognitive Bases of Emotions
Cultural Bases of Emotions
Expression of Emotions
Culture and Emotional Expression
Culture and Emotional Labelling
Managing Negative Emotions
Enhancing Positive Emotions
https://www.cbsesyllabus.in/class-11/psychology-class-11-syllabus
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Logotherapy - Viktor Frankl
The therapy, named "logotherapy," was recognized as the third school of Viennese therapy after Freud's psychoanalysis and Alfred Adler's individual psychology.
https://www.verywellmind.com/an-overview-of-victor-frankl-s-logotherapy-4159308
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Theory of the rise and decline of the Great Powers in the 20th century - Doctoral Dissertation - Information
Dissertation title: The Power to Create Wealth: A systems-based theory of the rise and decline of the Great Powers in the 20th century
Political Science, The City University of New York, 2001
Dissertation chapters [All PDF]
What is a Great Power? (Ch 1)
Theories of Rise and Fall (Ch 2)
A critique of neoclassical growth theory (Ch 3)
A theory of systems (Ch 4)
A theory of political systems (Ch 5)
A theory of economic systems: Categories and stages of production (Ch 6)
A theory of economic systems: The production system as a whole (Ch 7)
A theory of economic systems: capital and distribution (Ch 8)
A theory of political economic systems: Defining systems and capabilities (Ch 9)
A theory of political economic systems: Rise and decline (Ch 10)
Conclusion and summary
Global Machinery Production in the 20th Century (Appendix)
Bibliography
http://economicreconstruction.org/JonRynn Visit
A theory of political economic systems: Rise and decline (Ch 10)
As postulated previously, state and financial elites have tended to hold onto resources that should have gone back into the production system because they seek short-term fulfillment of desires for wealth and power over longer-term rewards.
Political Science, The City University of New York, 2001
Dissertation chapters [All PDF]
What is a Great Power? (Ch 1)
Theories of Rise and Fall (Ch 2)
A critique of neoclassical growth theory (Ch 3)
A theory of systems (Ch 4)
A theory of political systems (Ch 5)
A theory of economic systems: Categories and stages of production (Ch 6)
A theory of economic systems: The production system as a whole (Ch 7)
A theory of economic systems: capital and distribution (Ch 8)
A theory of political economic systems: Defining systems and capabilities (Ch 9)
A theory of political economic systems: Rise and decline (Ch 10)
Conclusion and summary
Global Machinery Production in the 20th Century (Appendix)
Bibliography
http://economicreconstruction.org/JonRynn Visit
A theory of political economic systems: Rise and decline (Ch 10)
As postulated previously, state and financial elites have tended to hold onto resources that should have gone back into the production system because they seek short-term fulfillment of desires for wealth and power over longer-term rewards.
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Public Choice Theory - Public Administration
Public choice or public choice theory uses economic tools to deal with traditional problems of political science .Its content includes the study of political behavior. In political science, it is the subset of positive political theory that studies voters, politicians, and bureaucrats and their interactions. These interactions can be studied using standard constrained utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory.
Background and development
A precursor of modern public choice theory was the work of Knut Wicksell (1896), in which he treated government's role as that of balancing exchange, in formulating a benefit principle linking taxes and expenditures.
Some subsequent economic analysis has been described as treating government as though it attempted "to maximize some kind sort of welfare function for society"
Modern public-choice theory starts from the work of Duncan Black, sometimes called "the founding father of public choice". In a series of papers from 1948, which culminated in The Theory of Committees and Elections (1958),, Black outlined a program of unification toward a more general "Theory of Economic and Political Choices" based on common formal methods
James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock coauthored The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (1962). The preface describes the book as about the political organization" of a free society based on methodology, conceptual apparatus, and analytics that are derived, essentially, from the discipline that has as its subject the economic organization of such a society. The consent discussed in the book takes the form of a compensation principle like Pareto efficiency for making a policy change and unanimity or at least no opposition as a point of departure for social choice.
Decision-making processes and the state
One way to organize the subject matter studied by public choice theorists is to begin with the foundations of the state itself. According to this procedure, the most fundamental subject is the origin of government and the fundamental problem of collectively choosing constitutional rules. This work assumes a group of individuals who aim to form a government, then it focuses on the problem of hiring the agents required to carry out government functions agreed upon by the members.
Some public choice scholars claim that politics is plagued by irrationality. In articles published in the Econ Journal Watch, economist Bryan Caplan contended that voter choices and government economic decisions are inherently irrational. Caplan's ideas are more fully developed in his book The Myth of the Rational Voter (Princeton University Press 2007). Countering Donald Wittman's arguments in The Myth of Democratic Failure, Caplan claims that politics is biased in favor of irrational beliefs.
According to Caplan, democracy effectively subsidizes irrational beliefs. Some people derive utility from potentially irrational policies like protectionism receiveing private benefits while imposing the costs of such beliefs on the general public. Were people to bear the full costs of their "irrational beliefs", they would lobby for them optimally, taking into account both their instrumental consequences and their expressive appeal. Instead, democracy oversupplies policies based on irrational beliefs. Caplan defines rationality mainly in terms of mainstream price theory, pointing out that mainstream economists tend to oppose protectionism and government regulation more than the general population, and that more educated people are closer to economists on this score, even after controlling for confounding factors such as income, wealth or political affiliation. Many economists do not share Caplan's views on the nature of public choice. However, Caplan does have data to support his position. Economists have, in fact, often been frustrated by public opposition to economic reasoning.
As Sam Peltzman puts it: Economists know what steps would improve the efficiency of HSE [health, safety, and environmental] regulation. These steps include substituting markets in property rights, such as emission rights, for command and control...The real problem lies deeper than any lack of reform proposals or failure to press them. It is our inability to understand their lack of political appeal.
Public choice's application to government regulation was developed by George Stigler (1971) and Sam Peltzman (1976).
Public choice theory is often used to explain how political decision-making results in outcomes that conflict with the preferences of the general public. For example, many advocacy group and pork barrel projects are not the desire of the overall democracy. However, it makes sense for politicians to support these projects. It may make them feel powerful and important. It can also benefit them financially by opening the door to future wealth as lobbyists. The project may be of interest to the politician's local constituency, increasing district votes or campaign contributions. The politician pays little or no cost to gain these benefits, as he is spending public money. Special-interest lobbyists are also behaving rationally. They can gain government favors worth millions or billions for relatively small investments. They face a risk of losing out to their competitors if they don't seek these favors. The taxpayer is also behaving rationally. The cost of defeating any one government give-away is very high, while the benefits to the individual taxpayer are very small. Each citizen pays only a few pennies or a few dollars for any given government favor, while the costs of ending that favor would be many times higher. Everyone involved has rational incentives to do exactly what they are doing, even though the desire of the general constituency is opposite. Costs are diffused, while benefits are concentrated. The voices of vocal minorities with much to gain are heard over those of indifferent majorities with little to individually lose. However the notion that groups with concentrated interests will dominate politics is incomplete because it is only one half of political equilibrium. Something must incite those preyed upon to resist even the best organized concentrated interests.
In his article on interest groups Gary Becker identified this countervailing force as being the deadweight loss from predation. His views capped what has come to be known as the Chicago school of political economy and it has come in sharp conflict with the so-called Virginia faction of public choice due to its assertion that politics will tend towards efficiency due to nonlinear deadweight losses and due to its claim that political efficiency renders policy advice irrelevant.
While good government tends to be a pure public good for the mass of voters, there may be many advocacy groups that have strong incentives for lobbying the government to implement specific policies that would benefit them, potentially at the expense of the general public. For example, lobbying by the sugar manufacturers might result in an inefficient subsidy for the production of sugar, either direct or by protectionist measures. The costs of such inefficient policies are dispersed over all citizens, and therefore unnoticeable to each individual. On the other hand, the benefits are shared by a small special-interest group with a strong incentive to perpetuate the policy by further lobbying.
Due to rational ignorance, the vast majority of voters will be unaware of the effort; in fact, although voters may be aware of special-interest lobbying efforts, this may merely select for policies which are even harder to evaluate by the general public, rather than improving their overall efficiency. Even if the public were able to evaluate policy proposals effectively, they would find it infeasible to engage in collective action in order to defend their diffuse interest. Therefore, theorists expect that numerous special interests will be able to successfully lobby for various inefficient policies. In public choice theory, such scenarios of inefficient government policies are referred to as government failure – a term akin to market failure from earlier theoretical welfare economics.
Rent-seeking
A field that is closely related to public choice is the study of rent-seeking. This field combines the study of a market economy with that of government. Its basic thesis is that when both a market economy and government are present, government agents provide numerous special market privileges. Both the government agents and self-interested market participants seek these privileges in order to partake in the resulting monopoly rent. Rentiers gain benefits above what the market would have offered, but in the process allocate resources in sub-optimal fashion from a societal point of view.
Rent-seeking applies to autocracies as well as democracies and, therefore, is not directly concerned with collective decision making. However, the obvious pressures it exerts on legislators, executives, bureaucrats, and even judges are factors that public choice theory must account for in its analysis of collective decision-making rules and institutions. Moreover, the members of a collective who are planning a government would be wise to take prospective rent-seeking into account.
Another major claim is that much of political activity is a form of rent-seeking which wastes resources. Gordon Tullock, Jagdish Bhagwati, and Anne Osborn Krueger have argued that rent-seeking has caused considerable waste. In a parallel line of research Fred McChesney claims that rent extraction causes considerable waste, especially in the developing world. As the term implies, rent extraction happens when officials use threats to extort payments from private parties.
Another major sub-field is the study of bureaucracy. The usual model depicts the top bureaucrats as being chosen by the chief executive and legislature, depending on whether the democratic system is presidential or parliamentary. The typical image of a bureau chief is a person on a fixed salary who is concerned with pleasing those who appointed him or her. The latter have the power to hire and fire him or her more or less at will. The bulk of the bureaucrats, however, are civil servants whose jobs and pay are protected by a civil service system against major changes by their appointed bureau chiefs. This image is often compared with that of a business owner whose profit varies with the success of production and sales, who aims to maximize profit, and who can in an ideal system hire and fire employees at will.
William Niskanen is generally considered the founder of public choice literature on the bureaucracy.
There is ideological diversity among public choice theorists regarding state. Mancur Olson for example was an advocate of a strong state and instead opposed political interest group lobbying. More generally, James Buchanan has suggested that public choice theory be interpreted as "politics without romance", a critical approach to a pervasive earlier notion of idealized politics set against market failure.
The British journalist, Alistair Cooke, commenting on the Nobel Prize awarded to James M. Buchanan in 1986, reportedly summarized the public choice view of politicians by saying, "Public choice embodies the homely but important truth that politicians are, after all, no less selfish than the rest of us."
Recognition
Several notable public choice scholars have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, including James M. Buchanan (1986), George Stigler (1982), Gary Becker (1992), Vernon Smith (2002) and Elinor Ostrom (2009). In addition, James Buchanan, Vernon Smith, and Elinor Ostrom were former presidents of the Public Choice Society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
Background and development
A precursor of modern public choice theory was the work of Knut Wicksell (1896), in which he treated government's role as that of balancing exchange, in formulating a benefit principle linking taxes and expenditures.
Some subsequent economic analysis has been described as treating government as though it attempted "to maximize some kind sort of welfare function for society"
Modern public-choice theory starts from the work of Duncan Black, sometimes called "the founding father of public choice". In a series of papers from 1948, which culminated in The Theory of Committees and Elections (1958),, Black outlined a program of unification toward a more general "Theory of Economic and Political Choices" based on common formal methods
James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock coauthored The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (1962). The preface describes the book as about the political organization" of a free society based on methodology, conceptual apparatus, and analytics that are derived, essentially, from the discipline that has as its subject the economic organization of such a society. The consent discussed in the book takes the form of a compensation principle like Pareto efficiency for making a policy change and unanimity or at least no opposition as a point of departure for social choice.
Decision-making processes and the state
One way to organize the subject matter studied by public choice theorists is to begin with the foundations of the state itself. According to this procedure, the most fundamental subject is the origin of government and the fundamental problem of collectively choosing constitutional rules. This work assumes a group of individuals who aim to form a government, then it focuses on the problem of hiring the agents required to carry out government functions agreed upon by the members.
Some public choice scholars claim that politics is plagued by irrationality. In articles published in the Econ Journal Watch, economist Bryan Caplan contended that voter choices and government economic decisions are inherently irrational. Caplan's ideas are more fully developed in his book The Myth of the Rational Voter (Princeton University Press 2007). Countering Donald Wittman's arguments in The Myth of Democratic Failure, Caplan claims that politics is biased in favor of irrational beliefs.
According to Caplan, democracy effectively subsidizes irrational beliefs. Some people derive utility from potentially irrational policies like protectionism receiveing private benefits while imposing the costs of such beliefs on the general public. Were people to bear the full costs of their "irrational beliefs", they would lobby for them optimally, taking into account both their instrumental consequences and their expressive appeal. Instead, democracy oversupplies policies based on irrational beliefs. Caplan defines rationality mainly in terms of mainstream price theory, pointing out that mainstream economists tend to oppose protectionism and government regulation more than the general population, and that more educated people are closer to economists on this score, even after controlling for confounding factors such as income, wealth or political affiliation. Many economists do not share Caplan's views on the nature of public choice. However, Caplan does have data to support his position. Economists have, in fact, often been frustrated by public opposition to economic reasoning.
As Sam Peltzman puts it: Economists know what steps would improve the efficiency of HSE [health, safety, and environmental] regulation. These steps include substituting markets in property rights, such as emission rights, for command and control...The real problem lies deeper than any lack of reform proposals or failure to press them. It is our inability to understand their lack of political appeal.
Public choice's application to government regulation was developed by George Stigler (1971) and Sam Peltzman (1976).
Public choice theory is often used to explain how political decision-making results in outcomes that conflict with the preferences of the general public. For example, many advocacy group and pork barrel projects are not the desire of the overall democracy. However, it makes sense for politicians to support these projects. It may make them feel powerful and important. It can also benefit them financially by opening the door to future wealth as lobbyists. The project may be of interest to the politician's local constituency, increasing district votes or campaign contributions. The politician pays little or no cost to gain these benefits, as he is spending public money. Special-interest lobbyists are also behaving rationally. They can gain government favors worth millions or billions for relatively small investments. They face a risk of losing out to their competitors if they don't seek these favors. The taxpayer is also behaving rationally. The cost of defeating any one government give-away is very high, while the benefits to the individual taxpayer are very small. Each citizen pays only a few pennies or a few dollars for any given government favor, while the costs of ending that favor would be many times higher. Everyone involved has rational incentives to do exactly what they are doing, even though the desire of the general constituency is opposite. Costs are diffused, while benefits are concentrated. The voices of vocal minorities with much to gain are heard over those of indifferent majorities with little to individually lose. However the notion that groups with concentrated interests will dominate politics is incomplete because it is only one half of political equilibrium. Something must incite those preyed upon to resist even the best organized concentrated interests.
In his article on interest groups Gary Becker identified this countervailing force as being the deadweight loss from predation. His views capped what has come to be known as the Chicago school of political economy and it has come in sharp conflict with the so-called Virginia faction of public choice due to its assertion that politics will tend towards efficiency due to nonlinear deadweight losses and due to its claim that political efficiency renders policy advice irrelevant.
While good government tends to be a pure public good for the mass of voters, there may be many advocacy groups that have strong incentives for lobbying the government to implement specific policies that would benefit them, potentially at the expense of the general public. For example, lobbying by the sugar manufacturers might result in an inefficient subsidy for the production of sugar, either direct or by protectionist measures. The costs of such inefficient policies are dispersed over all citizens, and therefore unnoticeable to each individual. On the other hand, the benefits are shared by a small special-interest group with a strong incentive to perpetuate the policy by further lobbying.
Due to rational ignorance, the vast majority of voters will be unaware of the effort; in fact, although voters may be aware of special-interest lobbying efforts, this may merely select for policies which are even harder to evaluate by the general public, rather than improving their overall efficiency. Even if the public were able to evaluate policy proposals effectively, they would find it infeasible to engage in collective action in order to defend their diffuse interest. Therefore, theorists expect that numerous special interests will be able to successfully lobby for various inefficient policies. In public choice theory, such scenarios of inefficient government policies are referred to as government failure – a term akin to market failure from earlier theoretical welfare economics.
Rent-seeking
A field that is closely related to public choice is the study of rent-seeking. This field combines the study of a market economy with that of government. Its basic thesis is that when both a market economy and government are present, government agents provide numerous special market privileges. Both the government agents and self-interested market participants seek these privileges in order to partake in the resulting monopoly rent. Rentiers gain benefits above what the market would have offered, but in the process allocate resources in sub-optimal fashion from a societal point of view.
Rent-seeking applies to autocracies as well as democracies and, therefore, is not directly concerned with collective decision making. However, the obvious pressures it exerts on legislators, executives, bureaucrats, and even judges are factors that public choice theory must account for in its analysis of collective decision-making rules and institutions. Moreover, the members of a collective who are planning a government would be wise to take prospective rent-seeking into account.
Another major claim is that much of political activity is a form of rent-seeking which wastes resources. Gordon Tullock, Jagdish Bhagwati, and Anne Osborn Krueger have argued that rent-seeking has caused considerable waste. In a parallel line of research Fred McChesney claims that rent extraction causes considerable waste, especially in the developing world. As the term implies, rent extraction happens when officials use threats to extort payments from private parties.
Bureaucracy - Public Administration
Another major sub-field is the study of bureaucracy. The usual model depicts the top bureaucrats as being chosen by the chief executive and legislature, depending on whether the democratic system is presidential or parliamentary. The typical image of a bureau chief is a person on a fixed salary who is concerned with pleasing those who appointed him or her. The latter have the power to hire and fire him or her more or less at will. The bulk of the bureaucrats, however, are civil servants whose jobs and pay are protected by a civil service system against major changes by their appointed bureau chiefs. This image is often compared with that of a business owner whose profit varies with the success of production and sales, who aims to maximize profit, and who can in an ideal system hire and fire employees at will.
William Niskanen is generally considered the founder of public choice literature on the bureaucracy.
There is ideological diversity among public choice theorists regarding state. Mancur Olson for example was an advocate of a strong state and instead opposed political interest group lobbying. More generally, James Buchanan has suggested that public choice theory be interpreted as "politics without romance", a critical approach to a pervasive earlier notion of idealized politics set against market failure.
The British journalist, Alistair Cooke, commenting on the Nobel Prize awarded to James M. Buchanan in 1986, reportedly summarized the public choice view of politicians by saying, "Public choice embodies the homely but important truth that politicians are, after all, no less selfish than the rest of us."
Recognition
Several notable public choice scholars have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, including James M. Buchanan (1986), George Stigler (1982), Gary Becker (1992), Vernon Smith (2002) and Elinor Ostrom (2009). In addition, James Buchanan, Vernon Smith, and Elinor Ostrom were former presidents of the Public Choice Society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
Friday, October 20, 2017
Goleman's New Book on Emotional Intelligence - Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence - Book Information - 2013
Daniel Goleman: "Focus: the Hidden Driver of Excellence" | Talks at Google
6 December 2013
_________________
_________________
The Focused Leader
Daniel Goleman
HBR, THE DECEMBER 2013
https://hbr.org/2013/12/the-focused-leader
Review posted in Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/2013/12/20/c3774f2c-672a-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_story.html
Updated 21 October 2017, 22 December 2013
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
The American Democracy - Evolution and Issues
Robert Dahl - The dean of American political scientists (1915 - 2014)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Dahl
The Future of American Democratic Politics: Principles and Practices
Nancy J. Hirschmann, Wilson McWilliams, Gordon Schochet, Jane Junn, Nelson Polsby, Jennifer Hochschild, John Hansen, Daniel Tichenor, Milton Heumann, Elizabeth Garrett, William Crotty, Alan Rosenthal, Gerald Pomper
Rutgers University Press, Jul 21, 2003 - 296 pages
Even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, political scientists were assessing changes and continuities in the principles and practices of American democracy. Recent events, including the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act and the current debates about civil liberties versus homeland security, intensify the need to examine the long-term viability of democracy.
In this book, fifteen major scholars assess the current state of American democracy, offering a spirited dialogue on the future of democratic politics. Contributors focus on three principles fundamental to democracy—equality, liberty, and participation. They examine these principles within the context of the basic institutions of American democracy: Congress and the state legislatures, the president, political parties, interest groups, and the Supreme Court. They raise questions regarding the checks and balances among formal governmental institutions (with the contributors sharing concern over the fading power of the legislature and the increased power of the executive and judiciary) as well as the role of political parties and interest groups.
Topics discussed include: the incomplete mobilization of the electorate, the debates over campaign finance reform and term limits, the Supreme Court’s activist role in the Florida recount, the dangers of teledemocracy and state initiatives, the separation of political participation from residential location, “identity politics,” the clash of "negative" and "positive" liberty, and the prospects for personal freedom in an era of terrorist threats.
This timely collection covers the issues relevant to the future of American democracy today not only for lawmakers, students, and historians, but for any concerned citizen.
Preview
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=P0J6Gz5jagEC
Updated 30 August 2017, 7 February 2015
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