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Author Fuller, Roslyn, author

Title Beasts and gods : how democracy changed its meaning and lost its purpose / Roslyn Fuller
Published London : Zed Books, 2015

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Front Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgements -- Beasts and Gods -- Introduction: What Is Democracy? -- Part I -- 1: Democracy in Athens: People Power is Born -- How Athenian Democracy Worked -- Random Power: The Key to Democratic Success in Athens -- 2: The Myth of Representation -- First-Past-the-Post: The Winner Takes It All -- Other Electoral Systems -- Modern Democracy as Symbolic Democracy -- 3: Buying and Selling Elections -- The High Cost of Campaigning -- You Get What You Pay for: The Vicious Circle of Political Donations and Government Action -- A Fistful of Euros: Buying Irish Local Elections -- Representative Democracy: Second Place is the First Loser -- Why Referenda Fail -- Why Regulation Fails -- Elections: The Perfect Habitat for Manipulation -- 4: Participation: Bought In or Locked Out? -- The Struggle to Participate in Modern Democracy -- Participation in Modern Democracy: Running to Stand Still -- The Athenian View on Participation -- Different But (More) Equal: Decision-Making in Athens -- From Ancient Duty to Modern Privilege -- 5: Modern Democracy and the International System: A Perfect Storm -- The United Nations -- The World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund -- At the International Casino the House Always Wins -- 6: Non-Governmental Organizations and the Civil Society Chimera -- The Nature of Modern NGOs: Charity Begins in the Boardroom -- The Dark Underbelly of NGO Lobbying: Roundtables, Drugs and Lots of Cash -- Representative Democracy and the International System: Fertile Ground for Oligarchy -- 7: How Did Things Get to Be This Way? The Roman Republican System and the Founding Fathers of America -- Roman Politics: Déjà Vu -- All Sizzle and No Steak: The Roman System Rots at the Core
Forgotten Fathers: Anti-Federalists, Republicans and the Battle for the US Constitution -- Part II -- 8: The Way Forward: Digital Democracy -- The Long-Term Dangers of Electoral Democracy -- Why International Power Cannot Fix Democracy -- Digital Democracy Takes Off: Citizens' Budgets and Crowdsourced Constitutions -- The Next Frontier: Online Decisions with Loomio and DemocracyOS -- 9: Disinformed is Disenfranchised: Why Taming Mass Media is a Necessary Step Towards Democracy -- The Medium and the Message: How Communication Methods Affect Decision-Making -- Using Mass Media to Guide Public Discourse -- The Meaning of Mass Media for Democracy -- Battlefield Internet: How Many Soldiers Does It Take to Run a Facebook Account? -- Reclaiming the Narrative by Funding Massive Participation Instead of Mass Media -- Mass Media: The Single Biggest Threat to Democracy -- 10: Democracy and Dissent: The Balance Between Individual and Community -- The Truth about Individual Rights in Athens -- Fact is Stranger than Fiction: The Extraordinary Trial of Socrates -- Protecting Democracy from Dissenters -- A Fragile Balance: The Economy, the Rule of Law and Democracy -- Rebalancing the Economy Today -- The Old Bugbear: Tyranny of the Majority -- Community and the Individual: Yin and Yang -- 11: Direct Democracy Today: Cutting the Gordian Knot -- Bibliography -- Index -- Back Cover
Summary An extraordinary historical, political and philosophical work that is set to not only reconfigure our understanding of democracy, but to challenge the individualistic basis of the modern liberal politics
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed December 2, 2015)
Subject Democracy.
Democracy -- History
Political structures: democracy.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- General.
Democracy
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781783605446
1783605448
9781783605453
1783605456