Rethinking Democratic Accountability

Author : Robert D. Behn
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 9780815798101
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rethinking Democratic Accountability written by Robert D. Behn and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-05-26 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditionally, American government has created detailed, formal procedures to ensure that its agencies and employees are accountable for finances and fairness. Now in the interest of improved performance, we are asking our front-line workers to be more responsive, we are urging our middle managers to be innovative, and we are exhorting our public executives to be entrepreneurial. Yet what is the theory of democratic accountability that empowers public employees to exercise such discretion while still ensuring that we remain a government of laws? How can government be responsive to the needs of individual citizens and still remain accountable to the entire polity? In Rethinking Democratic Accountability, Robert D. Behn examines the ambiguities, contradictions, and inadequacies in our current systems of accountability for finances, fairness, and performance. Weaving wry observations with political theory, Behn suggests a new model of accountability—with "compacts of collective, mutual responsibility"—to address new paradigms for public management.

Author : Vincent L. Hutchings
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691123799
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Public Opinion and Democratic Accountability written by Vincent L. Hutchings and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-11 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of public opinion research over the past several decades suggests that the American voters are woefully uninformed about politics and thus unable to fulfill their democratic obligations. Arguing that this perception is faulty, Vincent Hutchings shows that, under the right political conditions, voters are surprisingly well informed on the issues that they care about and use their knowledge to hold politicians accountable. Though Hutchings is not the first political scientist to contend that the American public is more politically engaged than it is often given credit for, previous scholarship--which has typically examined individual and environmental factors in isolation--has produced only limited evidence of an attentive electorate. Analyzing broad survey data as well as the content of numerous Senate and gubernatorial campaigns involving such issues as race, labor, abortion, and defense, Hutchings demonstrates that voters are politically engaged when politicians and the media discuss the issues that the voters perceive as important. Hutchings finds that the media--while far from ideal--do provide the populace with information regarding the responsiveness of elected representatives and that groups of voters do monitor this information when "their" issues receive attention. Thus, while the electorate may be generally uninformed about and uninterested in public policy, a complex interaction of individual motivation, group identification, and political circumstance leads citizens concerned about particular issues to obtain knowledge about their political leaders and use that information at the ballot box.

Author : Lisa Disch
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 1474442625
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Constructivist Turn in Political Representation written by Lisa Disch and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume traces the roots of the constructivist turn in the distinct (and competing) traditions of Continental and Anglo-American Western political thought. Divided into three thematic parts, these 13 newly commissioned essays develop the constructivist turn as a central concept. They advance the insight that there can be no democratic politics without representation; constituencies or groups exist as agents of democratic politics only insofar as they are represented.

Author : Marilyn Cochran-Smith
Publisher : Teachers College Press
ISBN 13 : 0807759317
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Reclaiming Accountability in Teacher Education written by Marilyn Cochran-Smith and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2018-04-20 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cochran-Smith and her research team argue that it is time for teacher educators to reclaim accountability. They critique major accountability initiatives, exposing the lack of evidence behind these policies and the negative impact they have on teacher education. They also offer an achievable alternative based on a commitment to equity and democracy.

Author : Herbert Kitschelt
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521865050
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Patrons, Clients and Policies written by Herbert Kitschelt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-29 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of patronage politics and the persistence of clientelism across a range of countries.

Author : Hélène Landemore
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691212392
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Open Democracy written by Hélène Landemore and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in public and debating laws set by a randomly selected assembly of several hundred citizens. To the Icelandic Vikings, democracy meant meeting every summer in a field to discuss issues until consensus was reached. Our contemporary representative democracies are very different. Modern parliaments are gated and guarded, and it seems as if only certain people are welcome. Diagnosing what is wrong with representative government and aiming to recover some of the openness of ancient democracies, Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy. Supporting a fresh nonelectoral understanding of democratic representation, Hélène Landemore demonstrates that placing ordinary citizens, rather than elites, at the heart of democratic power is not only the true meaning of a government of, by, and for the people, but also feasible and, more than ever, urgently needed. -- Cover page 4.

Author : Wayne Au
Publisher : Rethinking Schools
ISBN 13 : 094296151X
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pencils Down written by Wayne Au and published by Rethinking Schools. This book was released on 2012 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful collection from the groundbreaking Rethinking Schools magazine takes high-stakes standardized tests to task. Despite overwhelming evidence that the tests are invalid ways to measure teaching and learning -- and continuing signs of their unjust effects on students and teachers -- "reformers" and policymakers continue to force high-stakes tests into the public schools. Through articles that provide thoughtful and emotional critiques from the frontlines of education, Pencils Down deconstructs the damage that standardized tests wreak on our education system and the human beings that populate it. Better yet, it offers visionary forms of assessment that are not only more authentic, but also more democratic, fair, and accurate.

Author : Elizabeth Anderson
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691192243
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Private Government written by Elizabeth Anderson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments—and why we can’t see it One in four American workers says their workplace is a “dictatorship.” Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for what they are—private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives. Many employers minutely regulate workers’ speech, clothing, and manners on the job, and employers often extend their authority to the off-duty lives of workers, who can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. In this compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.

Author : Paul Charles Light
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
ISBN 13 : 9780815752554
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Monitoring Government written by Paul Charles Light and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers the first systematic evaluation of the offices of inspector general (OIG) and examines the government-wide investment in the OIGs concept. Despite their increasingly prominent, often controversial, role in the internal oversight of government, very little is known about their institutional or operational problems.

Author : S. Erdem Aytaç
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108475221
Total Pages : 175 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Bother? written by S. Erdem Aytaç and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using surveys, experiments, and fieldwork from several countries, this book tests a new theory of participation in elections and protests.