Town Hall Meetings and the Death of Deliberation

Town Hall Meetings and the Death of Deliberation PDF

Author: Jonathan Beecher Field

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2019-09-17

Total Pages: 98

ISBN-13: 1452962383

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Tracing the erosion of democratic norms in the US and the conditions that make it possible Jonathan Beecher Field tracks the permutations of the town hall meeting from its original context as a form of democratic community governance in New England into a format for presidential debates and a staple of corporate governance. In its contemporary iteration, the town hall meeting models the aesthetic of the former but replaces actual democratic deliberation with a spectacle that involves no immediate electoral stakes or functions as a glorified press conference. Urgently, Field notes that though this evolution might be apparent, evidence suggests many US citizens don’t care to differentiate. Forerunners: Ideas First Short books of thought-in-process scholarship, where intense analysis, questioning, and speculation take the lead

The Death of Deliberation

The Death of Deliberation PDF

Author: James I. Wallner

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-11-08

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1498589332

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The first edition of The Death of Deliberation revealed how the Senate legislates in a contentious environment. Yet it has been unable to legislate in recent years. Since 2013, the Senate has become more dysfunctional and gridlock has increased. The 115th Congress was one of the least productive two-year stretches in the Senate’s history. This second edition of The Death of Deliberation accounts for this dramatic turn of events.

The Death of Deliberation

The Death of Deliberation PDF

Author: James I. Wallner

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2013-09-25

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0739183052

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This book provides a counter-view on the conventional wisdom regarding the United States Senate. Specifically, it presents an alternative approach to the broken Congress genre with the argument that the Senate is not characterized by gridlock and that party leaders cooperate to make the institution work.

Civil Passions

Civil Passions PDF

Author: Sharon R. Krause

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-12-08

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 0691162247

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In this book Sharon Krause argues that moral and political deliberation must incorporate passions, even as she insists on the value of impartiality. Her work provides a systematic account of how passions can generate an impartial standpoint that yields binding and compelling conclusions in politics.

Public Deliberation

Public Deliberation PDF

Author: James Bohman

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780262522786

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An understanding of the ways in which public deliberation can be extended to meet the needs of modern societies even in the face of increasing pluralism, inequality, an social complexity.

Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics

Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics PDF

Author: Damien Smith Pfister

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2014-10-24

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 027106594X

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In Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics, Damien Pfister explores communicative practices in networked media environments, analyzing, in particular, how the blogosphere has changed the conduct and coverage of public debate. Pfister shows how the late modern imaginary was susceptible to “deliberation traps” related to invention, emotion, and expertise, and how bloggers have played a role in helping contemporary public deliberation evade these traps. Three case studies at the heart of Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics show how new intermediaries, including bloggers, generate publicity, solidarity, and translation in the networked public sphere. Bloggers “flooding the zone” in the wake of Trent Lott’s controversial toast to Strom Thurmond in 2002 demonstrated their ability to invent and circulate novel arguments; the pre-2003 invasion reports from the “Baghdad blogger” illustrated how solidarity is built through affective connections; and the science blog RealClimate continues to serve as a rapid-response site for the translation of expert claims for public audiences. Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics concludes with a bold outline for rhetorical studies after the internet.

The Death of Expertise

The Death of Expertise PDF

Author: Tom Nichols

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-02-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0190469439

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Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both. An update to the 2017breakout hit, the paperback edition of The Death of Expertise provides a new foreword to cover the alarming exacerbation of these trends in the aftermath of Donald Trump's election. Judging from events on the ground since it first published, The Death of Expertise issues a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age that is even more important today.

The Death of Politics

The Death of Politics PDF

Author: Peter Wehner

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0062820818

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The New York Times opinion writer, media commentator, outspoken Republican and Christian critic of the Trump presidency offers a spirited defense of politics and its virtuous and critical role in maintaining our democracy and what we must do to save it before it is too late. “Any nation that elects Donald Trump to be its president has a remarkably low view of politics.” Frustrated and feeling betrayed, Americans have come to loathe politics with disastrous results, argues Peter Wehner. In this timely manifesto, the veteran of three Republican administrations and man of faith offers a reasoned and persuasive argument for restoring “politics” as a worthy calling to a cynical and disillusioned generation of Americans. Wehner has long been one of the leading conservative critics of Donald Trump and his effect on the Republican Party. In this impassioned book, he makes clear that unless we overcome the despair that has caused citizens to abandon hope in the primary means for improving our world—the political process—we will not only fall victim to despots but hasten the decline of what has truly made America great. Drawing on history and experience, he reminds us of the hard lessons we have learned about how we rule ourselves—why we have checks and balances, why no one is above the law, why we defend the rights of even those we disagree with. Wehner believes we can turn the country around, but only if we abandon our hatred and learn to appreciate and honor the unique and noble American tradition of doing “politics.” If we want the great American experiment to continue and to once again prosper, we must once more take up the responsibility each and every one of us as citizens share.

Esteemed Colleagues

Esteemed Colleagues PDF

Author: Burdett A. Loomis

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2004-05-13

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780815798972

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What's happened to the longstanding traditions of civility and decorum within the world's greatest deliberative body? While the Senate hasn't yet become as rancorous as the House, over the past three decades it has grown noticeably less collegial. In Esteemed Colleagues, leading congressional scholars address the extent to which civility has declined in the U.S. Senate, and how that decline has affected our political system. The contributors analyze the relationships between Senators, shaped by high levels of both individualism and partisanship, and how these ties shape the deliberation of issues before the chamber. Civility and deliberation have changed in recent decades, up to and including the Clinton impeachment process, and the book sheds light on both the current American politics and the broad issues of representation, responsiveness, and capacity within our governmental institutions.

Deliberation and Decision

Deliberation and Decision PDF

Author: Anne van Aaken

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 1351945491

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Deliberation and Decision explores ways of bridging the gap between two rival approaches to theorizing about democratic institutions: constitutional economics on the one hand and deliberative democracy on the other. The two approaches offer very different accounts of the functioning and legitimacy of democratic institutions. Although both highlight the importance of democratic consent, their accounts of such consent could hardly be more different. Constitutional economics models individuals as self-interested rational utility maximizers and uses economic efficiency criteria such as incentive compatibility for evaluating institutions. Deliberative democracy models individuals as communicating subjects capable of engaging in democratic discourse. The two approaches are disjointed not only in terms of their assumptions and methodology but also in terms of the communication - or lack thereof - between their respective communities of researchers. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the recent debate between the two approaches and makes new and original contributions to that debate.