American Democracy Reconsidered: Part I

1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. J. Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Government ◽  
The State ◽  
City Government ◽  
State Governments ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One

In his celebrated study of American democracy written in 1888, Lord Bryce reserved his most condemnatory reflections for city government and in a muchquoted passage asserted: ‘There is no denying that the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States. The deficiencies of the National government tell but little for evil on the welfare of the people. The faults of the State governments are insignificant compared with the extravagance, corruption and mismanagement which mark the administration of most of the great cities'sangeetha.

People’s Movement in Odisha: An Assessment

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283
Author(s):  
Subhendu Ranjan Raj
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
The State ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Growth Strategies ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Set Up

Development process in Odisha (before 2011 Orissa) may have led to progress but has also resulted in large-scale dispossession of land, homesteads, forests and also denial of livelihood and human rights. In Odisha as the requirements of development increase, the arena of contestation between the state/corporate entities and the people has correspondingly multiplied because the paradigm of contemporary model of growth is not sustainable and leads to irreparable ecological/environmental costs. It has engendered many people’s movements. Struggles in rural Odisha have increasingly focused on proactively stopping of projects, mining, forcible land, forest and water acquisition fallouts from government/corporate sector. Contemporaneously, such people’s movements are happening in Kashipur, Kalinga Nagar, Jagatsinghpur, Lanjigarh, etc. They have not gained much success in achieving their objectives. However, the people’s movement of Baliapal in Odisha is acknowledged as a success. It stopped the central and state governments from bulldozing resistance to set up a National Missile Testing Range in an agriculturally rich area in the mid-1980s by displacing some lakhs of people of their land, homesteads, agricultural production, forests and entitlements. A sustained struggle for 12 years against the state by using Gandhian methods of peaceful civil disobedience movement ultimately won and the government was forced to abandon its project. As uneven growth strategies sharpen, the threats to people’s human rights, natural resources, ecology and subsistence are deepening. Peaceful and non-violent protest movements like Baliapal may be emulated in the years ahead.

Democracy and Excellence: Concord or Conflict?

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 535-537
Author(s):  
Laura Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
The Relationship

Democracy and Excellence: Concord or Conflict?, Joseph Romance and Neil Reimer, eds., Westport CN: Praeger, 2005, 166, pp. xiv.This volume is the product of a question, asked by Neal Reimer, about the relationship between democracy and excellence. Reimer provides background for this relationship in the first chapter, noting that it can be framed as government by the people versus standards of the good, true and beautiful. Conflict can arise between the two ideas because democracy prioritizes equality of citizens—but excellence depends upon the recognition of differentiating merit. While democracy provides citizens freedom from a limiting class structure, the lack of structure can make citizens indifferent to pursuing a noble vision of the state. Reimer argues, however, that there is a fundamental harmony between democracy and excellence and that examples of excellence in democratic societies (such as the United States) are many. It is possible and likely that democratic societies will attain excellence in practice.

II. The United States of Lyncherdom

Prospects ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 139-150
Author(s):  
Mark Twain
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Single Sample ◽  
Chinese Christians ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

And so Missouri has fallen, that great State! Certain of her children have joined the lynchers, and the smirch is upon the rest of us. That handful of her children have given us a character and labeled us with a name; and to the dwellers in the four quarters of the earth we are “lynchers,” now, and ever shall be. For the world will not stop and think – it never does, it is not its way; its way is to generalize from a single sample. It will not say “Those Missourians have been busy eighty years in building an honorable good name for themselves; these hundred lynchers down in the corner of the State are not real Missourians, they are bastards.” No, that truth will not enter its mind; it will generalize from the one or two misleading samples and say “The Missourians are lynchers.” It has no reflection, no logic, no sense of proportion. With it, figures go for nothing; to it, figures reveal nothing, it cannot reason upon them rationally; it is Brother J. J. infinitely multiplied; it would say, with him, that China is being swiftly and surely Christianized, since 9 Chinese Christians are being made every day; and it would fail, with him, to notice that the fact that 33,000 pagans are born there every day, damages the argument. It would J-J Missouri, and say “There are a hundred lynchers there, therefore the Missourians are lynchers;” the considerable fact that there are two and a half million Missourians who are not lynchers would not affect their verdict any more than it would affect Bro. J. J.'s.

Text of Resolution Which Entered the United States into World War

1917 ◽  
Vol 85 (17) ◽  
pp. 455-456
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
German Government ◽  
The People ◽  
Successful Termination ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government

The following is the text of the resolutions which officially entered the United States into the world war:— “Whereas the imperial German government has committed repeated acts of war against the government and the people of the United States of America; therefore be it “Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in congress assembled, that the state of war between the United States and the imperial German government, which has thus been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared; and that the President be and he is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the government to carry on war against the imperial German government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.”

scholarly journals When Interbranch Norms Break Down: Of Arms-for-Hostages, "Orderly Shutdowns, "Presidential Impeachments, and Judicial Coups

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Shane
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Government ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
National System ◽  
Effective Operation ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Government

The orderly and effective operation of our national system of government was intended to depend to an exceptional degree upon certain norms of cooperation among its competing branches. The strength of those norms is essential to securing the primary political asset that our government design was intended to help realize: an especially robust form of democratic legitimacy. From this standpoint, it is constitutionally worrisome that norms critical to inter-branch cooperation are coming under heedless assault. To illustrate the problem, this article revisits four critical episodes that have involved destabilizing and antidemocratic initiatives, each undertaken by a branch of the national government while in the control of the current, very conservative generation of Republican party leadership: the Iran-Contra affair, the government shutdown of 1995, the impeachment of President Clinton, and the Senate stonewalling of President Clinton's judicial nominations. The repeated willingness of the Republican Party's most conservative elements to engage in such initiatives is not rooted in political conservatism per se. It reflects rather the narrowing social and ideological base of the Republican Party, and is consistent with a contempt for democratic pluralism that characterizes the constitutional outlook of leading Republican legal theorists. Unless matters are improved, the United States may otherwise be headed towards a new political equilibrium that does considerable violence to America's modern practice of democratic legitimacy.

scholarly journals Warlords, the United States, and the state of anarchy in Afghanistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Shah Azami
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Illegal Mining ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

As part of its “War on Terror”, the United States (US) provided immense sums of money and advanced equipment to Afghan warlords in order to defeat and dismantle the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Nearly two decades after the 2001 US-led intervention in Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban regime, the US continues supporting the warlords in various ways. As the intervention was also aimed at establishing a functioning state and reconstruction of the war-torn country, the US needed the support of local warlords to achieve its goals. However, over time, warlords and warlordism became a major challenge to the postTaliban state-building project and in many ways undermined the overall security and the state monopoly on violence. These warlords, who had been mostly expelled and defeated by the Taliban regime, returned under the aegis of the B52 bombers, recaptured parts of the country and reestablished their fiefdoms with US support and resources. They not only resist giving up the power and prestige they have accumulated over the past few years, but also hamper the effort to improve governance and enact necessary reforms in the country. In addition, many of them run their private militias and have been accused of serious human rights abuses as well as drug trafficking, arms smuggling, illegal mining and extortion in the areas under their control or influence. In many ways, they challenge the government authority and have become a major hurdle to the country’s emerging from lawlessness and anarchy. This paper explores the emergence and reemergence of warlords in Afghanistan as well as the evolution of chaos and anarchy in the country, especially after the US-led intervention of late 2001. It also analyzes the impact of the post-9/11 US support to Afghan warlords and its negative consequences for the overall stability and the US-led state-building process in Afghanistan.

The Final Stage of the Minority Revolution in the United States. Upward Mobility of Minorities to the Corridors of Power

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-1) ◽  
pp. 62-91
Author(s):  
Irina Zhezhko-Braun ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
The Government

This article is the third and final in a series dealing with the birth of a new political elite in the United States, the minority elite. In previous articles, the mechanism of its appearance was analyzed, as well as its ideology, goals, program and values. The black movement, as the most co-organized of all protest movements, is entering the final phase of its development, being engaged in the placement of its representatives in state and federal governments, political parties and other social institutions. The women’s movement has recently been taken over by ethnic movements, primarily blacks, and has become their vanguard. This article describes new social elevators for the promotion of minority representatives into the corridors of power. The logic of promoting people of their own race, gender and nationality to the highest branches of power began to prevail over other criteria for recruiting personnel. During the 2020 election campaign, a new mechanism for promoting minorities in all branches of government was formed. It is based on numerous violations of local and federal electoral legislation. The mechanism of pressure on the US electoral system is analyzed using the example of the state of Georgia and the activities of politician Stacey Abrams. The article describes Abrams’ strategy to create a network of NGOs that are focused on one mission - to arrange for the political shift of the state in the elections. These organizations circumvented existing laws, making the state of Georgia the record holder for electoral irregularities and lawsuits. The article shows that Abrams’ struggle with the electoral laws of her state is based on the political myth of the voter suppression of minorities. The author identifies a number of common characteristics of the new elite. The minority elite does not show any interest in social reconciliation and overcoming racial conflict, but rather makes efforts to incite the latter, to attract the government to its side and increase its role in establishing “social justice” through racial quotas and infringement of the rights of those social strata that it has appointed bearers of systematic racism in society. As the colored elite increases and the government’s role in resolving racial conflicts grows, the minority movement is gradually condemned, it ceases to be a true grassroots movement and turns into astroturfing.

Concepts of Government

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Temin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Dark Skin ◽  
Dual Economy ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government

This chapter describes three concepts of government. Democracy is the government of, for and by the people. It provides services to all its members and insures them against a variety of risks, ranging from bankruptcy to the accident of being born poor and with a dark skin. Autarchy is government by a person or family that takes care of itself with little or no concern for the rest of the population. Oligarchy stands in between these extremes and varies by the size of the oligarchy. The United States in the 19th century was the uneasy combination of a demographic North and an oligarchic South. The country approached democracy in the 20th century, but this trajectory reversed after 1970, leading to an oligarchic dual economy.

The NGOization of Refugee Resettlement

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-91
Author(s):  
Jennifer Erickson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Refugee Resettlement ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Migration

This chapter explains the policies, politics, and everyday practices of the New American Services. It highlights the tensions surrounding citizenship and the role that nongovernmental (or nonprofit) organizations play in Fargo under neoliberalism by analyzing these practices in terms of the “NGOization” of refugee resettlement. The chapter defines NGOization as the proliferation of NGOs under neoliberalism as extensions, or new faces, of the state. It views NGOs from a feminist's lens, and challenges the master narrative that refugee resettlement was purely humanitarian or simply unaccountable. The chapter provides an overview of everyday resettlement practices and beliefs about resettlement staff, and how their work can be interpreted in regard to the larger social issues laid out in this book: race, citizenship, and diversity. It also talks about the Cooperative Agreement between the Government of the United States (the State Department and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration) and VOLAGS or voluntary agencies.

What Americans Want from Public Schools

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Hochschild ◽  
Nathan Scovronick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
American Dream ◽  
The United States ◽  
Benjamin Franklin ◽  
State Governments ◽  
European Welfare State ◽  
The Government ◽  
Main Activity

AMERICANS CONTINUE TO FOLLOW the advice of Benjamin Franklin in making “the proper education of youth” the most important American social policy. Public education uses more resources and involves more people than any other government program for social welfare. It is the main activity of local governments and the largest single expenditure of almost all state governments. Education is the American answer to the European welfare state, to massive waves of immigration, and to demands for the abolition of subordination based on race, class, or gender. Although public schools in the United States are expected to accomplish a lot for their students, underlying all of these tasks is the goal of creating the conditions needed for people to believe in and pursue the ideology of the American dream. Our understanding of the American dream is the common one, described by President Clinton this way: “The American dream that we were all raised on is a simple but powerful one—if you work hard and play by the rules you should be given a chance to go as far as your God-given ability will take you.” The dream is the unwritten promise that all residents of the United States have a reasonable chance to achieve success through their own efforts, talents, and hard work. Success is most often defined in material terms, but everyone gets to decide what it is for himself or herself. The first man to walk across Antarctica talks about this idea in the same way as people who make their first million: “The only limit to achievement,” he said, “is the limit you place on your own dreams. Let your vision be guided by hope, your path be adventurous, and the power of your thoughts be directed toward the betterment of tomorrow.” The American dream is a brilliant ideological invention, although, as we shall see, in practice it leaves much to be desired. Its power depends partly on the way it balances individual and collective responsibilities. The role of the government is to make the pursuit of success possible for everyone. This implies strict and complete nondiscrimination, universal education to provide the means for pursuing success, and protection for virtually all views of success, regardless of how many people endorse them.

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