Open democracy : reinventing popular rule for the twenty-first century / Hélène Landemore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Landemore, Hélène, 1976- author.

Series:

Princeton scholarship online.

Princeton scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Deliberative democracy.

Representative government and representation.

Political participation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xix, 243 pages)

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2021.

Summary:

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 - with the right suit, accent, wealth, and connections - are welcome. Diagnosing what is wrong with representative government and aiming to recover some of the lost openness of ancient democracies, this book presents a new paradigm of democracy in which power is genuinely accessible to ordinary citizens.

Contents:

Introduction

The crisis of representative democracy

The myth of direct democracy

Legitimacy and representation beyond elections (part one)

Legitimacy and representation beyond elections (part two)

The principles of open democracy

Let the people in! Lessons from a modern Viking saga

On the viability of open democracy

Conclusion: Open democracy in a global world.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on May 5, 2021).

Previously issued in print: 2020.

ISBN:

9780691208725

0691208727

OCLC:

1202624783