Reviving Democracy

Public universities are in crisis, waning in their role as central institutions within democratic societies. Denunciations are abundant, but analyses of the causes and proposals to re-create public universities are not. Based on extensive experience with Action Research-based organizational change in universities and private sector organizations, Levin and Greenwood analyze the wreckage created by neoliberal academic administrators and policymakers. The authors argue that public universities must be democratically organized to perform their educational and societal functions. The book closes by laying out Action Research processes that can transform public universities back into institutions that promote academic freedom, integrity, and democracy.

The aim of this text is to analyze the conditions for a good society and, from extensive international research, to show how citizens can be put at the centre of the political process. This has enormous importance for future policy which the authors explore. With support from the Commonwealth Foundation, the book sets out to change the current political consensus and demonstrate the route forward to sustainable development.

The Downward Spiral of Canadian Democracy Democratic government in Canada has been declining – at an accelerating rate. The House of Commons is ineffective. The Senate is not accountable and is scandal-ridden. Decision making is increasingly centralized in the largely invisible staff in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Many who have been active participants have turned off and tuned out because of understandable disillusionment. The result is that actions that undermine democracy can now be taken without much fear of reprisal. This book explains how our democratic governing machinery and operating principles have been undermined and what can be done to reverse this downward slide. It is intended to enrage you and then engage you – in the fight to restore and to enhance our democratic institutions and practices.

Democracy is struggling in America. Citizens increasingly feel cynical about an intractable political system, while hyper-partisanship has dramatically shrank common ground and intensified the extremes. Out of this deepening sense of political despair, philosopher of education Sarah M. Stitzlein seeks to revive democracy by teaching citizens how to hope. Offering an informed call to citizen engagement, Stitzlein directly addresses presidential campaigns, including how to select candidates who support citizens in enacting and sustaining hope. Drawing on examples from American history and pragmatist philosophy, this book explains how hope can be cultivated in schools and sustained through action in our communities -- it describes what hope is, why it matters to democracy, and how to teach it. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

The news media is traditionally the watchdog of democracy. Today, it is also one of the most pervasive global industries. In this lively and accessible book, Schultz systematically analyses the role of journalism in Australia and the scope of its democratic purpose. She examines key news stories, and looks at the attitudes of Australian journalists themselves. The fourth estate remains the ideal of most journalists, but the reality has been impaired by the increasing concentration of media ownership and by political, ethical and occupational interests. While Australian journalism has become bolder and more investigative, increasing commercialism and decreasing ethical standards have left the public sceptical. Schultz argues for a revival of the fourth estate based on journalistic independence and poltical autonomy, together with increased accountability and responsiveness.

“This global affairs veteran has carved out a solid, mature path, including for ‘flawed democracies’ like the U.S. We’d all be wise to follow.” — Vancouver Sun From the author of the Globe and Mail bestseller, Claws of the Panda, comes a book quite literally for our times. Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence is a thoughtful account of how we can save democracies from the despots and populists who provide easy answers to complicated situations, dumbing political discourse down to sandbox antics. Manthorpe argues that democracy is more resilient than it appears, and is capable of overcoming the attacks from within and without that have sapped its vigour since the end of the Cold War. He begins with a description of the events of 1989, one of the seminal years in modern history. This saw the end of the Cold War, and the apparent conclusive victory of democracy and its civic values. But the view of these changes as a triumph of democracy — as summed up in Francis Fukuyama’s essay "The End of History" — was short-lived. Russia, shorn of its Soviet empire, and the Chinese Communist Party, re-examining its survival after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, began devising ways to counter-attack the West’s triumphalism and these met with considerable success. Internal pressures and contradictions — wealth disparity being chief among them — threaten the survival of many democratic systems. Abandoned industrial workers turn to the repeated platitudes designed to appeal to those left behind without actually offering them the ways and means to catch up. Immigrants, refugees, and the reformist fixations of isolated liberal elites have provided ammunition for would-be despots. Adding to the pressures building on the political norms of our democracies, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic and social stand-still for which no country is prepared.

Democracy is struggling in America. Citizens increasingly feel cynical about an intractable political system, while hyper-partisanship has dramatically shrank common ground and intensified the extremes. Out of this deepening sense of political despair, philosopher of education Sarah M. Stitzlein seeks to revive democracy by teaching citizens how to hope. Offering an informed call to citizen engagement, Stitzlein directly addresses presidential campaigns, including how to select candidates who support citizens in enacting and sustaining hope. Drawing on examples from American history and pragmatist philosophy, this book explains how hope can be cultivated in schools and sustained through action in our communities -- it describes what hope is, why it matters to democracy, and how to teach it. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

The aim of this text is to analyze the conditions for a good society and, from extensive international research, to show how citizens can be put at the centre of the political process. This has enormous importance for future policy which the authors explore. With support from the Commonwealth Foundation, the book sets out to change the current political consensus and demonstrate the route forward to sustainable development.