"Open Democracy envisions what true government by mass leadership
could look like."—Nathan Heller, New Yorker How a new model of
democracy that opens up power to ordinary citizens could strengthen
inclusiveness, responsiveness, and accountability in modern societies
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,
Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy in which power is
genuinely accessible to ordinary citizens. Hélène Landemore favors
the ideal of “representing and being represented in turn” over
direct-democracy approaches. Supporting a fresh nonelectoral
understanding of democratic representation, Landemore recommends
centering political institutions around the “open mini-public”—a
large, jury-like body of randomly selected citizens gathered to define
laws and policies for the polity, in connection with the larger
public. She also defends five institutional principles as the
foundations of an open democracy: participatory rights, deliberation,
the majoritarian principle, democratic representation, and
transparency. Open Democracy 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, today more than ever, urgently needed.
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780691208725
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter