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Books : Disaffected DemocraciesIn association with Amazon.comfrom: Princeton University Press  Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 320.91821 EAN: 9780691049243 ISBN: 0691049246 Label: Princeton University Press Manufacturer: Princeton University Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 360 Publication Date: May 08, 2000 Publisher: Princeton University Press Studio: Princeton University Press Sales Rank: 357605 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: It is a notable irony that as democracy replaces other forms of governing throughout the world, citizens of the most established and prosperous democracies (the United States and Canada, Western European nations, and Japan) increasingly report dissatisfaction and frustration with their governments. Here, some of the most influential political scientists at work today examine why this is so in a volume unique in both its publication of original data and its conclusion that low public confidence in democratic leaders and institutions is a function of actual performance, changing expectations, and the role of information. The culmination of research projects directed by Robert Putnam through the Trilateral Commission and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, these papers present new data that allow more direct comparisons across national borders and more detailed pictures of trends within countries than previously possible. They show that citizen disaffection in the Trilateral democracies is not the result of frayed social fabric, economic insecurity, the end of the Cold War, or public cynicism. Rather, the contributors conclude, the trouble lies with governments and politics themselves. The sources of the problem include governments' diminished capacity to act in an interdependent world and a decline in institutional performance, in combination with new public expectations and uses of information that have altered the criteria by which people judge their governments. Although the authors diverge in approach, ideological affinity, and interpretation, they adhere to a unified framework and confine themselves to the last quarter of the twentieth century. This focus--together with the wealth of original research results and the uniform strength of the individual chapters--sets the volume above other efforts to address the important and increasingly international question of public dissatisfaction with democratic governance. This book will have obvious appeal for a broad audience of political scientists, politicians, policy wonks, and that still sizable group of politically minded citizens on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - In retrospect, a case of great data leading to commonsense inferencesWhy look back at a study done eight years ago? Because it is a pretty classic case of self-proclaimed public intellectuals from academe (in this case Robert Putnam) managing to impose strictures on their debates, and thereby hamstring their own efforts to contribute to the health of democratic discourse. Post-World War II decolonization (especially in Vietnam) was an era of bloody injustices that fed civic outrage and political backlash, and was especially intense in Europe in 1968. ... Read More Rating: - Are The Trilateral Nations Really In Decline?Are the trilateral democratic nations threatened by a steady disintegration of their social capital? Are individual citizens less trusting of their political institutions and even of each other? These are the central themes probed by the contributors of this collection of essays. This book represents a reassessment of an earlier study "The Crisis of Democracy" completed twenty five years ago by the Trilateral Commission. I found the central premise of the current study, though, to be highly ... Read More Rating:  - Not much insight into democratic disaffectionMany tables are presented that demonstrate that confidence in public institutions, especially in the executive and legislative branches of government, has declined in varying amounts in the trilateral countries, the US, Japan, and Europe, over the last 25 years. The conclusions seem to be that this trend is based on the public's perception that the performance of these institutions has deteriorated. But little insight is offered behind the numbers. The following are minimally addressed if at all. Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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