Compatible Cultural Democracy

This book argues that it is time for African nations to govern themselves using modified, indigenous political structures and ideologies. Osabu-Kle closely examines the colonization experience and the massive transplantation of Western political forms as well as the post-independence period of structural transformation. He delves into the makeup of a number of indigenous African political systems: the Ovimbunda, Zulu, Ashanti, and Ga peoples whose cultures, though geographically distant, exhibit common characteristics, including consensualism and a balance between centralization and decentralization to check the abuse of power. Osabu-Kle argues that only a type of democracy compatible with the historic African cultural environment is capable of achieving the political conditions for successful development. But he goes beyond establishing that precolonial African political systems were democratic. Rather, he describes how the indigenous political culture might be modified to achieve the political conditions necessary to work towards a successful future. This dynamically written, lively, and informed study provides a provocative challenge to conventional Western commentaries on Africa and current thinking about the continent's "re-democratization."

Introduction : variants of democratic practice -- The great transplantation -- The post-independence problem -- Typical African political systems -- Towards the modification of African political culture -- Ghana : tactical action, socialism and the military -- Nigeria : oil, coups, and ethnic war -- Kenya : settler ideology and the struggle for Majimbo -- Tanzania : Ujamaa, compulsion, and the freedom of association -- Somalia : experiments with democracy, military rule, and socialism -- Senegal : from French colonialism to the failure of partisan politics -- Rwanda : from success astroy to human disaster -- Congo (Kinshasa) : "a most lethal poison."

Following the work of a range of public intellectuals like Stanley Aronowitz, Henry Giroux, bell hooks, Chantal Mouffe, and Cornel West, Cultural Democracy argues for a "radical democracy" capable of subverting traditional divisions of "left" and "right". In so doing, Trend suggests that solutions to contemporary cultural and political problems are not so far away as one might think. Their roots lie in the very democratic principles upon which the U.S.was founded, although many such principles need to be brought up to date and radicalized.

The Democracy Sourcebook offers a collection of classic writings and contemporary scholarship on democracy, creating a book that can be used by undergraduate and graduate students in a wide variety of courses, including American politics, international relations, comparative politics, and political philosophy. The editors have chosen substantial excerpts from the essential theorists of the past, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, and the authors of The Federalist Papers; they place them side by side with the work of such influential modern scholars as Joseph Schumpeter, Adam Przeworski, Seymour Martin Lipset, Samuel P. Huntington, Ronald Dworkin, and Amartya Sen. The book is divided into nine self-contained chapters: "Defining Democracy," which discusses procedural, deliberative, and substantive democracy; "Sources of Democracy," on why democracy exists in some countries and not in others; "Democracy, Culture, and Society," about cultural and sociological preconditions for democracy; "Democracy and Constitutionalism," which focuses on the importance of independent courts and a bill of rights; "Presidentialism versus Parliamentarianism"; "Representation," discussing which is the fairest system of democratic accountability; "Interest Groups"; "Democracy's Effects," an examination of the effect of democracy on economic growth and social inequality; and finally, "Democracy and the Global Order" discusses the effects of democracy on international relations, including the propensity for war and the erosion of national sovereignty by transnational forces.

Analysing in detail the transformation of citizenship practices in European Union countries, Benhabib concludes that flexible citizenship, certain kinds of legal pluralism and models of institutional powersharing are quite compatible with deliberative democracy, as long as they are in accord with egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary self-ascription and freedom of exit and association.

The authors interviewed over 5,000 citizens in Germany, Italy, Mexico, Great Britain, and the U.S. to learn political attitudes in modem democratic states. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This is a recognized classic in the psychology of the American peoples. It brings together a series of reflections upon the nature of culture and of democracy, upon their bearing to one another in the United States, and upon their underlying dynamics in the social and spiritual endeavors of the many peoples striving toward life, liberty, and happiness amid the varied settings of the American scene. Kallen argues that various decisions made throughout the history of the United States have been determined by prejudice. In his new introduction, Stephen Whitfield delves deeply into Kallen's background, discussing the influences on his life and work. This volume will be a necessary addition to the personal libraries of sociologists, political theorists, philosophers, and ethnic studies scholars.

What is the relationship between culture and human rights? Can the idea of cultural rights, which are predicated on the distinctiveness and exclusivity of a communitya (TM)s beliefs and traditions, be compatible with the concept of human rights, which are universal and a ~inherenta (TM) to all human beings? If we accept such compatibility, what is the actual content of cultural rights? Who are their beneficiaries: individuals, or peoples or groups as collective entities? And what precise obligations do cultural rights pose upon states or other actors in international law, or for the international community as a whole? International instruments on the protection of human rights do not provide self-evident answers to these questions. This book seeks to analyse these dilemmas and to assess the impact that they are having on international law and the development of a coherent category of cultural human rights.