Public Democracy Research Articles

Democratic Education and Public Universities in America

The purpose of this article is to discuss the democratic function of public higher education in America and to outline the role of the curriculum and campus climate toward that end. The last section provides on-campus examples.

Challenges of Regional Policy and Responses of Traditional Public Administration in East-Central European Countries

The paper deals with the development of the management system of regional policy in four countries (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania). It presents the results and dilemmas concerning the creation of the territorial administration and the administrative meso-level, the special organs of regional policy and their interconnections with public administration. It also touches upon the emerging conflicts between the traditional institutions of democratic participation and publicity, and the new characteristics of the partnership networks. The presentation points out the decentralisation and modernisation challenges initiated by regional policy in the new member states in the light of European regional development strategy in the future and the domestic situation as well.

Rethinking the Educational Practices of Biblical Doctoral Studies

The paper explores the impact of the change in populations, the impact of electronic communication, and the multiplicity of methodological approaches on the ethos and practices of biblical studies. It proposes a rhetorical emancipatory educational paradigm and explores its possibilities for the professional education of biblical scholars on the doctoral level. Since both college and seminary teachers are shaped in and through their doctoral studies, it is necessary to focus on doctoral education in order to address the growing recognition that the discipline of biblical studies in its present form needs to cultivate transformative intellectuals who are not only at home in the academy but also can critically intervene in the public discourses and uses of the Bible in religious communities, democratic publics, or global inter‐religious relations.

Neoliberalism, Corporate Culture, and the Promise of Higher Education: The University as a Democratic Public Sphere

In this article, Henry Giroux addresses the corrosive effects of corporate culture on the academy and recent attempts by faculty and students to resist the corporatization of higher education. Giroux argues that neoliberalism is the most dangerous ideology of the current historical moment. He shows that civic discourse has given way to the language of commercialization, privatization, and deregulation and that, within the language and images of corporate culture, citizenship is portrayed as an utterly privatized affair that produces self-interested individuals. He maintains that corporate culture functions largely to either ignore or cancel out social injustices in the existing social order by overriding the democratic impulses and practices of civil society through an emphasis on the unbridled workings of market relations. Giroux suggests that these trends mark a hazardous turn in U.S. society, one that threatens our understanding of democracy and affects the ways we address the meaning and purpose of higher education.

Allegory and Democratic Public Culture in the Postmodern Era

The man lies on the hotel bed, clad only in his underwear, as he watches the TV screen just beyond his feet. His right hand holds the remote control, which he uses to scan through the cable channels. To his left sits Abraham Lincoln, clothed in long-sleeved white shirt and black pants and reading a book. Lincoln's long, angular frame is just a bit stooped, and his brow is slightly furrowed, as if long accustomed to thinking on the edge of melancholy. Lincoln is mulling over a statement by Walter Benjamin: Allegories are, in the realm of thoughts, what ruins are in the realm of things (Benjamin 1977, 178).1 Seated to the man's right is a woman wearing the terry cloth bathrobe provided by the hotel. She leans slightly forward, legs crossed, as she reads the New York Times Magazine cover story about President Clinton. Listen to this, she says with a bemused smile. In the clutter around his desk in the Oval Office stands not a single bust of a favorite predecessor, but five: Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Truman and two of F.D.R., plus a statuette of Will Rogers for good measure. If governing is choosing, this collection is a metaphor for this President's trouble with choices, and he himself allows, That's the story of my Presidency, that desk' (Purdum 1996, 36). The man says nothing as he continues to watch the succession of images on the screen: a lizard flicks its tongue in the desert heat; a child in a stroller laughs as she holds a strawberry ice cream cone; a congressman in blue suit, white shirt, and red tie jabs his finger into the air as he talks earnestly; cars plastered with automotive product logos curl around a race track; Fred and Ginger swirl around the dance floor; soldiers wade ashore at Omaha Beach; the Space Shuttle lifts off; Groucho lifts his eyebrows; Regis smiles; mushrooms and peppers simmer in a pan. The succession of images could go on indefinitely. The tableau remains static. The composition is an allegory: a figurai presentation that organizes multiple interpretations regarding collective experience. It also contains and comments on other forms of itself: Clinton's desk is an ex-

Race, Color Blindness, and the Democratic Public: Albion W. Tourgee's Radical Principles in Plessy v. Ferguson

How much would it be worth to a young man entering upon the practice of law, to be regarded as a white man rather than a colored one? Six-sevenths of the population are white. Nineteen-twentieths of the property of the country is owned by white people. Ninety-nine hundredths of the business opportunities are in the control of white people. These propositions are rendered even more startling by the intensity of feeling which excludes the colored man from the friendship and companionship of the white man.... Under these conditions, is it possible to conclude that the reputation of being white is not property? Indeed, is it not the most valuable sort of property, being the master-key that unlocks the golden door of opportunity? --Albion W. Tourgee, Brief of Plaintiff in Error, Plessy v. Ferguson [emphasis in original] HISTORIANS HAVE LONG REGARDED THE U.S. SUPREME COURT'S 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson as a landmark in American constitutional history. The Plessy suit also marked the last effort by surviving Radical Republicans of the Civil War generation to establish an interracial democratic public. At the time, the Court's upholding of Louisiana's so-called Separate Car Act seemed the final reconciliation of white supremacy with the Reconstruction amendments of the 1860s, amendments that had been designed to protect citizenship fights from racial discrimination. Yet the ideals that motivated the Plessy suit--those of an interracial democracy--lived on. The legal argument against segregation was persistently revived and refought by later civil fights activists, culminating in Brown v. the Board of Education (1954). Over the course of this process, both the legal rhetoric and the constitutional principles raised by the Plessy case went through many stages of transformation and reformulation, and they have continued to do so ever since. The Plessy case introduced several enduring legal principles and metaphors into the constitutional discourse about race, civil rights, and models of the ideal democratic public. The flood of popular and scholarly literature that revisited the Plessy case on its centennial anniversary in 1996 demonstrated the continued relevance of its central issues and the lasting power of the rhetoric it employed.(1) Of all the arguments advanced in the case, the one that most greatly continues to inform public debate on racial discrimination remains the assertion of color blindness before the law. In his famous Plessy dissent, Justice John Marshall Harlan asserted, There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.(2) Legal scholars continue to debate what Harlan meant by this and whether or not this statement was intended as constitutional doctrine. What is too often forgotten in these debates, however, is that Harlan borrowed the metaphor of color blindness from a legal brief submitted by Homer Plessy's lead counsel in the case, Albion W. Tourgee.(3) Given the importance of the phrase color blindness and the complex arguments regarding it, there is a need to better understand its historical origins. Until now this concept has been examined mainly in terms of its enduring importance as legal doctrine; Harlan's dissent in Plessy has been the most influential use of the phrase for those who have deemed it a constitutional principle. Interestingly, however, Harlan seems never to have used it either before or afterward.(4) On the other hand, Albion W. Tourgee, who was lead attorney for Homer Plessy, first deployed the term in Plessy and had used it on several prior occasions on behalf of the struggle for civil rights. Indeed, Tourgee's first use of the legal metaphor of color blindness came decades before while serving as a Superior Court judge in North Carolina. One of the original Radical Republicans and an active participant in Reconstruction politics, Tourgee remained a controversial but respected voice within the Republican party from the 1860s until the McKinley administration. …

Religious Intellectuals, the "Woman Question/' and the Struggle for the Creation of a Democratic Public Sphere in Iran1

The ideas of the new generation of religious intellectuals in Iran have been the main engine for the call for reform. These intellectuals have attempted to locate their views about the way women are and should be treated in Islamic societies in their much broader—and to them more significant—attempt to offer a modernist religious understanding and a more democratic reading of the role of religion in modern polity. Iranian feminists, on the other hand, have begun to insist that the particular situation of women in Iran is in need of more attention. Religious intellectuals have responded by engaging in reluctant analysis of the way the “woman question” poses itself in the Iranian context. So far, their analyses fail to take into account the gender implications of the struggle against absolutism and traditional authority. However, the dynamic interaction of the reform project with demands and aspirations of various sectors of Iranian public life will not allow the issue to rest here. Religious intellectuals, in their attempt to recreate essential religious truth in the form of new intellectual concepts and systems, will increasingly have to deal with systemic gender inequalities in a more systematic manner.

Anthony Giddens and Modern Social Theory

Introduction PART ONE: THE RECONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL THEORY The Legacy of Classical Sociological Theory New Rules of Sociological Method Positivism, Interpretive Sociology and Structuration Theory Structuration Theory Reconceptualizing Agency and Structure PART TWO: SOCIAL CHANGE AND MODERNITY The State, Capitalism and Social Change The Culture of Modernity From the Critique of Postmodernism to the Rise of the New Social Movements The Problems and Possibilities of a Democratic Public Life in Late Modern Societies Feminism, Sexuality and Self-Identity Conclusion

Working, Shirking, and Sabotage

Books reviewed: John Brehm and Scott Gates, Working, Shirking, and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public.

Kevin Mattson. <italic>Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era</italic>. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1998. Pp. 208. Cloth $45.00, paper $16.95

Kevin Mattson. <italic>Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era</italic>. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1998. Pp. 208. Cloth $45.00, paper $16.95

Progressive Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Democratic Commitment

Acknowledgments Introduction Progressive Reformers, Social Scientists, and the Search for a Democratic Public Defining the People: The Wisconsin School of Labor History and the Creation of the American Worker The People's Expert: Charles McCarthy and the Perils of Public Service Joining the People: William English Walling and the Specter of the Intellectual Class A Love for the People: Anna Strunsky Walling and the Domestic Limits of Democratic Idealism A Voice for the People: A. Philip Randolph and the Cult of Leadership The People's Strategist: W. Jett Lauck and the Panacea of Plenty Teaching the People: Wil Lou Gray and the Siren of Educational Opportunity Epilogue: The Once and Future Career of the Public Intellectual Notes Index

Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era

Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era

What is a Fair Trial? Rape Prosecutions, Disclosure and the Human Rights Act

This article engages with the vogue for predicting the effects of the Human Rights Act 1998 by focusing on the rape prosecution and trial. The specific interest is feminist scrutiny of the right to a fair trial, particularly the concept of ‘fairness’, in light of the increasing use of disclosure rules (in Canada and England) to gain access to medical and counseling records. Transcending the two contemporary narratives of ‘victims’/women’s rights and defendants’ rights in the criminal justice system, the authors argue for the infusion of the legal debate on disclosure with feminist understandings of wider cultural debates. They suggest that an increased reflexivity about intimacy, publicity and power, leading perhaps to the development of a concept of ‘democratic publicity’ (Fraser, 1997, p. 100), might help to revision the meaning of ‘relevant’ evidence in the rape trial. They also suggest that the wide-ranging cultural debate about memory, truth and history, and the emerging commitment to experimentation in responding to massive, institutionalised human rights violations (including apartheid, war crimes and child abuse) might be of use in deepening current thinking about the rape trial and listening to the ‘voice’ of the complainant.

Social Democratic Leadership and Public Policy

(1999). Social Democratic Leadership and Public Policy. Policy, Organisation and Society: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 141-152.

Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era.

Journal Article Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era. By Kevin Mattson. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. viii, 208 pp. Cloth, $45.00, ISBN 0-271-01722-8. Paper, $16.95, ISBN 0-271-01723-6.) Get access Peter McCaffery Peter McCaffery Thames Valley University, London, United Kingdom Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 85, Issue 4, March 1999, Pages 1626–1627, https://doi.org/10.2307/2568355 Published: 01 March 1999

Working, Shirking, and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public. By John Brehm and Scott Gates. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997. 270p. $39.50.

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Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era. Kevin Mattson

<i>Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era</i>. Kevin Mattson

Working, Shirking, and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public. John Brehm , Scott Gates

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsWorking, Shirking, and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public. John Brehm , Scott Gates James C. ClingermayerJames C. Clingermayer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 60, Number 2May, 1998 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2647925 Views: 14Total views on this site Copyright 1998 University of Texas PressPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Self-Rule: A Cultural History of American Democracy.

Something important occurred in early 19th century America that came to be called democracy. Since then hundreds of millions of people worldwide have operated on the assumption that democracy exists. Yet definitions of democracy are surprisingly vague and remarkably few reckon with its history. In this work, Robert Wiebe suggests that only in appreciating that history can we recognize how breathtaking democracy's arrival was, how extraordinary its spread has been, and how uncertain its prospects are. American democracy arrived abruptly in the 19th century and changed just as dramatically early in the 20th century. Hence, this book divides the history of American democracy into two halves: a 19th century half covering the 1820s to the present, and a 20th century half, with a major transition from the 1890s to the 1920s between them. As Wiebe explains why the original democracy of the early 19th century represented a sharp break from the past, he recreates the way European visitors contrasted the radical character of American democracy with their own societies. He then discusses the operation of various 19th century democratic publics, including a nationwide public, the People. Finally, he places democracy's white fraternal world of equals in a larger environment where other Americans who differed by class, race, and gender, developed their own relations to democracy. Wiebe then picks up the history of democracy in the 1920s and carries it to the present. Individualism, once integrated with collective self-governance in the 19th century, becomes the driving force behind 20th century democracy. During those same years, other ways of defining good government and sound public policy shunt majoritarian practices to one side. Late in the 20th century, these two great themes in the history of American democracy - individualism and majoritarianism - turn on one another in modern democracy's war on itself. Finally, this text assesses the polarized state of contemporary American democracy. Putting the judgments of over 60 commentators from Kevin Phillips and E.J. Dionne to Robert Bellah and Benjamin Barber to the test of history, Wiebe offers his own suggestions on the meaning and direction of today's democracy. This sweeping work explains how the history of American democracy has brought the country to its current position and how that same history could invite one to create a different future.

Creating a Democratic Public Sphere Through Political Discussion

Computer-mediated discussion is an increasingly popular method of engaging in political talk with other citizens. This article presents a case study of a Usenet newsgroup focused on abortion, and discusses the creation of a public sphere by the conversants. The notion of the public sphere is discussed, and measures allowing an assessment of its democratic character are proposed. A formula for estimating entropy is developed and applied to data obtained from the case study of an ongoing discussion. A high level of inequality in participation among conversants is noted, with very few of the discussants responsible for an extraordinarily high proportion of the content. This inequality, though tempered by analysis of the newsgroup on a day-to-day basis, calls into question the democratic character of the public sphere represented by this conversation.