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This book argues that the promulgation of the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework and Communal Land Rights Acts runs the risk of compromising South Africa's democracy. The acts establish traditional councils with land administration powers. These structures are dominated by unelected members.
Lesley Boitumelo Chiloane's "Compromised Democracy: The Not So Successful Side of Our Freedom" is an essay on the effects of the Democratic Government in South Africa. The author explains, "While I have no doubt in my mind that our democracy has surely been compromised, I however, have a question that continues to haunt me, which is whether is it the ordinary people's version and definition of democracy and their expectations thereof that has been compromised or is it that our more than ten years experience of democracy has produced exactly what democracy by its basic form and definition should?" The piece discusses the election in 1994, which was a monumental event. "In 1994, most of us, especially black South Africans, if not all, voted for the African National Congress for many reasons. We wanted to ensure the transition of power from the white minority to black majority." Notably, in the next election in 1999, "most people were complaining about how the ANC had failed to deliver on its promises." Indications of the democracy benefiting the minority versus the majority were evident, according to the piece. Analysts explained that the ANC needed more time to make the changes, as stated in the essay. The author concludes, "Yes, indeed the last fourteen years have been filled with drama, tears, joy and excitement, and we owe it to ourselves as South Africans to celebrate that. Sustained economic growth, a strengthening currency, and social welfare for more people are just some of the positive developments we have to celebrate. However, I believe that we have the capacity, potential and ability to do more and we are not." He also poetically finishes the book by say: "However negative it may seem to many of you out there, I find comfort in the last two paragraphs of Ehrmann's Desiderata: " You are the child of the universe, no less than the trees and stars, you have the right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and inspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy". Don't you feel good after reading this book? You must, this book had to be written, either by me or somebody else" This manuscript is designed to be a political discussion. It might appeal to readers who appreciate political pieces. You will also appreciate his conversational style of writing, he is talking to the reader, not writing a book for the reader to read.
Lesley Boitumelo Chiloane's "Compromised Democracy: The Not So Successful Side of Our Freedom" is an essay on the effects of the Democratic Government in South Africa. The author explains, "While I have no doubt in my mind that our democracy has surely been compromised, I however, have a question that continues to haunt me, which is whether is it the ordinary people's version and definition of democracy and their expectations thereof that has been compromised or is it that our more than ten years experience of democracy has produced exactly what democracy by its basic form and definition should?" The piece discusses the election in 1994, which was a monumental event. "In 1994, most of us, especially black South Africans, if not all, voted for the African National Congress for many reasons. We wanted to ensure the transition of power from the white minority to black majority." Notably, in the next election in 1999, "most people were complaining about how the ANC had failed to deliver on its promises." Indications of the democracy benefiting the minority versus the majority were evident, according to the piece. Analysts explained that the ANC needed more time to make the changes, as stated in the essay. The author concludes, "Yes, indeed the last fourteen years have been filled with drama, tears, joy and excitement, and we owe it to ourselves as South Africans to celebrate that. Sustained economic growth, a strengthening currency, and social welfare for more people are just some of the positive developments we have to celebrate. However, I believe that we have the capacity, potential and ability to do more and we are not." He also poetically finishes the book by say: "However negative it may seem to many of you out there, I find comfort in the last two paragraphs of Ehrmann's Desiderata: ..".You are the child of the universe, no less than the trees and stars, you have the right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and inspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy." Don't you feel good after reading this book? You must, this book had to be written, either by me or somebody else" This manuscript is designed to be a political discussion. It will appeal to readers who appreciate political pieces. You will also appreciate his conversational style of writing. He is talking to the reader, not writing a book for the reader to read.
How does a country reconstitute itself as a functioning democracy after a period of dictatorship? The new community may execute, imprison, or temporarily disenfranchise some citizens, but it will be unable to exclude all who supported the fallen regime. Political reconciliation must lay the groundwork for political trust. Democracy offers the compromised--and many who were more than just compromised--a second chance. In this new book, Anne Sa'adah explores twentieth-century Germany's second chances. Drawing on evidence from intellectual debates, trials, literary works, controversies about the actions of public figures, and partisan competition, Sa'adah analyzes German responses to the problem of reconciliation after 1945 and again after 1989. She depicts the frustrations, moral and political ambiguities, and disappointments inherent to even successful processes of democratization. She constantly underscores the difficult trade-off between achieving a modicum of justice and securing the legitimacy and stability of the new regime. A strategy of reconciliation emphasizing outward conformity to democratic norms and behavior, she argues, has a greater chance of sustaining a new and fragile democracy than do more direct attempts to punish past misdeeds and alter people's inner convictions.
Author : Lawrence Lessig Publisher : University of Chicago Press Page : 264 pages File Size : 52,7 Mb Release : 2018-10-22 Category : Law ISBN : 9780226316673
An analysis of “the Trump era, but not about Trump. . . . but on how incentives across a range of institutions have created corruption” (New York Times Book Review). “There is not a single American awake to the world who is comfortable with the way things are.” So begins Lawrence Lessig's sweeping indictment of modern-day American institutions and the corruption that besets them—from the selling of Congress to special interests to the corporate capture of the academy. And it’s our fault. What Lessig brilliantly shows is that we can’t blame the problems of contemporary American life on bad people, as our discourse all too often tends to do. Rather, he explains, “We have allowed core institutions of America’s economic, social, and political life to become corrupted. Not by evil souls, but by good souls. Not through crime, but through compromise.” Through case studies of Congress, finance, the academy, the media, and the law, Lessig shows how institutions are drawn away from higher purposes and toward money, power, quick rewards—the first steps to corruption. Lessig knows that a charge so broad should not be levied lightly, and that our instinct will be to resist it. So he brings copious detail gleaned from years of research, building a case that is all but incontrovertible: America is on the wrong path. If we don’t acknowledge our own part in that, and act now to change it, we will hand our children a less perfect union than we were given. It will be a long struggle. This book represents the first steps. “A devastating argument that America is racing for the cliff's edge of structural, possibly irreversible tyranny.” —Cory Doctorow
Winner of the Writer's Trust of Canada / Samara's - Best Canadian Political Book of the Last 25 Years Part memoir, part investigative journalism, this is a shocking and controversial look at the corruption of Canada’s human rights commissions. “On January 11, 2008, I was summoned to a 90-minute government interrogation. My crime? As the publisher of Western Standard magazine, I had reprinted the Danish cartoons of Mohammed to illustrate a news story. I was charged with the offence of “discrimination,” and made to appear before Alberta’s “human rights commission” for questioning. As crazy as it sounds, I became the only person in the world to face legal sanction for printing those cartoons.” As a result of this highly publicized event, Ezra Levant began investigating other instances in which innocent people have had their freedoms compromised by bureaucrats presuming to protect Canadians’ human rights. He discovered some disturbing and even bizarre cases, such as the tribunal ruling that an employee at a McDonald’ s restaurant in Vancouver did not have to wash her hands at work. And the human rights complaint filed by a Calgary hair stylist against the women at a salon school who called him a “loser.” In another case that seemed stranger than fiction, an emotionally unstable transvestite fought for — and won — the right to counsel female rape victims, despite the anguished pleas of those same traumatized victims. Human rights commissions now monitor political opinions, fine people for expressing politically incorrect viewpoints, censor websites, and even ban people, permanently, from saying certain things. The book is a result of Levant’s ordeal and the research it inspired. It shows how our concept of human rights has morphed into something dangerous and drastically different from its original meaning. Shakedown is a convincing plea to Canadians to reclaim their basic liberties.
Traditional Leaders in a Democracy by MISTRA MISTRA Pdf
Post-1994, South Africa's traditional leaders have fought for recognition, and positioned themselves as major players in the South African political landscape. Yet their role in a democracy is contested, with leaders often accused of abusing power, disregarding human rights, expropriating resources and promoting tribalism. Some argue that democracy and traditional leadership are irredeemably opposed and cannot co-exist. Meanwhile, shifts in the political economy of the former bantustans - the introduction of platinum mining in particular - have attracted new interests and conflicts to these areas, with chiefs often designated as custodians of community interests. This edited volume explores how chieftancy is practised, experienced and contested in contemporary South Africa. It includes case studies of how those living under the authority of chiefs, in a modern democracy, negotiate or resist this authority in their respective areas. Chapters in this book are organised around three major sites of contest: leadership, land and law.
Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy by Richard A. Posner Pdf
A liberal state is a representative democracy constrained by the rule of law. Richard Posner argues for a conception of the liberal state based on pragmatic theories of government. He views the actions of elected officials as guided by interests rather than by reason and the decisions of judges by discretion rather than by rules. He emphasizes the institutional and material, rather than moral and deliberative, factors in democratic decision making. Posner argues that democracy is best viewed as a competition for power by means of regular elections. Citizens should not be expected to play a significant role in making complex public policy regarding, say, taxes or missile defense. The great advantage of democracy is not that it is the rule of the wise or the good but that it enables stability and orderly succession in government and limits the tendency of rulers to enrich or empower themselves to the disadvantage of the public. Posner’s theory steers between political theorists’ concept of deliberative democracy on the left and economists’ public-choice theory on the right. It makes a significant contribution to the theory of democracy—and to the theory of law as well, by showing that the principles that inform Schumpeterian democratic theory also inform the theory and practice of adjudication. The book argues for law and democracy as twin halves of a pragmatic theory of American government.
Author : Lawrence Lessig Publisher : University of Chicago Press Page : 264 pages File Size : 43,6 Mb Release : 2018-11-15 Category : Law ISBN : 9780226316536
“There is not a single American awake to the world who is comfortable with the way things are.” So begins Lawrence Lessig's sweeping indictment of contemporary American institutions and the corruption that besets them. We can all see it—from the selling of Congress to special interests to the corporate capture of the academy. Something is wrong. It’s getting worse. And it’s our fault. What Lessig shows, brilliantly and persuasively, is that we can’t blame the problems of contemporary American life on bad people, as our discourse all too often tends to do. Rather, he explains, “We have allowed core institutions of America’s economic, social, and political life to become corrupted. Not by evil souls, but by good souls. Not through crime, but through compromise.” Every one of us, every day, making the modest compromises that seem necessary to keep moving along, is contributing to the rot at the core of American civic life. Through case studies of Congress, finance, the academy, the media, and the law, Lessig shows how institutions are drawn away from higher purposes and toward money, power, quick rewards—the first steps to corruption. Lessig knows that a charge so broad should not be levied lightly, and that our instinct will be to resist it. So he brings copious, damning detail gleaned from years of research, building a case that is all but incontrovertible: America is on the wrong path. If we don’t acknowledge our own part in that, and act now to change it, we will hand our children a less perfect union than we were given. It will be a long struggle. This book represents the first steps.
Rights, Democracy, and Fulfillment in the Era of Identity Politics by David Ingram Pdf
Introduction : new critical theory : taking rights, democracy, and identity politics seriously -- Human rights and differends : the fragmentation of reason and identity in the (post)modern age -- White man's burden? ethnicity and race in the era of identity politics -- Identity politics and the law : reflections on disability -- Democracy and racial identity : reconsidering representation -- Democracy and the rule of law : differends and crises in postliberal capitalism -- Toward a pragmatist and perfectionist theory of rights -- Human rights and international justice -- Concluding remarks : achieving global harmony through transformative dialogue.
In analyzing the obstacles to democratization in post- independence Africa, Mahmood Mamdani offers a bold, insightful account of colonialism's legacy--a bifurcated power that mediated racial domination through tribally organized local authorities, reproducing racial identity in citizens and ethnic identity in subjects. Many writers have understood colonial rule as either "direct" (French) or "indirect" (British), with a third variant--apartheid--as exceptional. This benign terminology, Mamdani shows, masks the fact that these were actually variants of a despotism. While direct rule denied rights to subjects on racial grounds, indirect rule incorporated them into a "customary" mode of rule, with state-appointed Native Authorities defining custom. By tapping authoritarian possibilities in culture, and by giving culture an authoritarian bent, indirect rule (decentralized despotism) set the pace for Africa; the French followed suit by changing from direct to indirect administration, while apartheid emerged relatively later. Apartheid, Mamdani shows, was actually the generic form of the colonial state in Africa. Through case studies of rural (Uganda) and urban (South Africa) resistance movements, we learn how these institutional features fragment resistance and how states tend to play off reform in one sector against repression in the other. The result is a groundbreaking reassessment of colonial rule in Africa and its enduring aftereffects. Reforming a power that institutionally enforces tension between town and country, and between ethnicities, is the key challenge for anyone interested in democratic reform in Africa.
Architecture against Democracy by Reinhold Martin,Claire Zimmerman Pdf
Examining architecture’s foundational role in the repression of democracy Reinhold Martin and Claire Zimmerman bring together essays from an array of scholars exploring the troubled relationship between architecture and antidemocratic politics. Comprising detailed case studies throughout the world spanning from the early nineteenth century to the present, Architecture against Democracy analyzes crucial occasions when the built environment has been harnessed as an instrument of authoritarian power. Alongside chapters focusing on paradigmatic episodes from twentieth-century German and Italian fascism, the contributors examine historic and contemporary events and subjects that are organized thematically, including the founding of the Smithsonian Institution, Ellis Island infrastructure, the aftermath of the Paris Commune, Cold War West Germany and Iraq, Frank Lloyd Wright’s domestic architecture, and Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Through the range and depth of these accounts, Architecture against Democracy presents a selective overview of antidemocratic processes as they unfold in the built environment throughout Western modernity, offering an architectural history of the recent “nationalist international.” As new forms of nationalism and authoritarian rule proliferate across the globe, this timely collection offers fresh understandings of the role of architecture in the opposition to democracy. Contributors: Esra Akcan, Cornell U; Can Bilsel, U of San Diego; José H. Bortoluci, Getulio Vargas Foundation; Charles L. Davis II, U of Texas at Austin; Laura diZerega; Eve Duffy, Duke U; María González Pendás, Cornell U; Paul B. Jaskot, Duke U; Ana María León, Harvard U; Ruth W. Lo, Hamilton College; Peter Minosh, Northeastern U; Itohan Osayimwese, Brown U; Kishwar Rizvi, Yale U; Naomi Vaughan; Nader Vossoughian, New York Institute of Technology and Columbia U; Mabel O. Wilson, Columbia U.
Dewey's Democracy and Education Revisited by Patrick M. Jenlink Pdf
This book presents a collection of contemporary discourses that reconsider the relationship of democracy as a political ideology and American ideal (i.e., Dewey's progressivist ideas) and education as the foundation of preparing democratic citizens in America.
Freedom in the World is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The methodology of this survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories.
