"What is democracy, really? What do we mean when we use the term? And can it ever truly exist? Astra Taylor, hailed as a 'New Civil Rights Leader' by the Los Angeles Times, provides surprising answers. There is no shortage of democracy, at least in name, yet it is in crisis everywhere we look. From a cabal of plutocrats in the White House to gerrymandering and dark-money campaign contributions, it is clear that the principle of government by and for...

"The relationship between ecology and democracy has a complex history and an uncertain future. Ecological crises threaten all forms of life on earth, and democracy too is endangered, as popular discontent, elite malfeasance, and unresponsive institutions herald crisis if not collapse. It is clear that our present political concepts and institutions are inadequate for meeting the challenges of living in right relation with the more-than-human world...

The world can be better run. Democracy is the most effective way to take back control over decisions that impact people's lives. But democracy must evolve following a global technological revolution that has increased fears that global trade and immigration threaten our identity, that we face environmental ruin and that cybercriminals and Big Tech can do as they please, unchecked – all made worse by COVID-19. This book presents a roadmap for more...

Drawing on new empirical research from the political and cognitive sciences, Angus Fletcher deftly analyzes the narrative elements of two dozen stage plays, novels, romances, histories, and operas written by such authors as Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, William Congreve, John Gay, Henry Fielding, and Washington Irving. He unearths five comic techniques that were used to foster democratic...

In spring of 2013, a wave of urban riots swept across Sweden after police shot an elderly man in his own home. When community residents from his marginalized city-district demanded an official apology, they were ignored. The anti-police insurgences that followed addressed deep problems of the Swedish welfare state, and the official responses revealed glitches built into democracy itself. In this updated edition of Anarchist Critique of Radical Democracy:...

"Propelled by the belief that government has slipped out of the hands of ordinary citizens, a surging wave of populism is destabilizing democracies around the world. As John Matsusaka reveals in Let the People Rule, this belief is based in fact. Over the past century, while democratic governments have become more efficient, they have also become more disconnected from the people they purport to represent. The solution Matsusaka advances is familiar...

Brian Roper refreshes our understanding of democracy using a Marxist theoretical framework. He traces the history of democracy from ancient Athens to the emergence of liberal representative and socialist participatory democracy in Europe and North America, through to the global spread of democracy during the past century.

"This book is a short account of the history of the doctrine, practices, and institutions of democracy, from ancient Greece and Rome through the American, French, and Russian revolutions, and its varieties and conditions in the modern world. It argues that democracy is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for good government, and that ideas of the rule of law, and of human rights, and the claims and liberties of groups within society must often...

"To the Ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in a public space and arguing based on an agenda set by a randomly selected assembly of 500 other citizens. To the Icelandic Vikings in Northern Europe a few centuries later, it meant gathering every summer in a large field, a place where they held their own annual "parliament," and similarly talking things through until they got to relatively consensual decisions about the common's fate. Our contemporary...

C. Douglas Lummis writes as if he were talking with intelligent friends rather than articulating political theory. He reminds us that democracy literally means a political state in which the people (demos) have the power (kratia). The people referred to are not people of a certain class or gender or color. They are, in fact, the poorest and largest body of citizens. Democracy is and always has been the most radical proposal, and constitutes a critique...