Shterna Friedman - Böcker

Since at least the time of Plato, political scientists and philosophers have been concerned about what citizens and rulers should know if they are to be governed—and govern—well. Moreover, the increasing complexity of modern societies has revivified thinking about and around the critical concept of political knowledge. Vital questions arise, such as: does effective democracy demand an informed electorate? is such an aspiration realistic, given the size and reach of modern governments? how can electorates compensate for their ignorance, given the vast amount of information that might be necessary to make sound political judgements? or is such ignorance ‘rational’?This new collection from Routledge brings together canonical and cutting-edge research to interrogate these and other issues. Edited by leading scholars, Political Knowledge assembles in four volumes the best and most important scholarship, from the ancients to the work of the deliberative democrats. The collection also gathers the key survey research, from the Columbia and Michigan schools down to the present. Further, it makes sense of the main lines of normative debate about these findings, and addresses the various causal and theoretical understandings of political knowledge and ignorance, while illuminating directions for future research.With a full index, together with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editors, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Political Knowledge is an essential work of reference. The collection will be particularly useful as an essential database allowing scattered and often fugitive material from less accessible books and specialized journals to be easily located. It will also be welcomed as a crucial tool permitting rapid access to less familiar—and sometimes overlooked—texts. For researchers, students, and policymakers, it is a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

In the foundational document of modern public-opinion research, Philip E. Converse’s "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics" (1964) established the U.S. public’s startling political ignorance. This volume makes Converse’s long out-of-print article available again and brings together a variety of scholars, including Converse himself, to reflect on Converse’s findings after nearly half a century of further research. Some chapters update findings on public ignorance. Others outline relevant research agendas not only in public-opinion and voter-behavior studies, but in American political development, "state theory," and normative theory. Three chapters grapple with whether voter ignorance is "rational." Several chapters consider the implications of Converse’s findings for the democratic ideal of a well-informed public; others focus on the political "elite," who are better informed but quite possibly more dogmatic than members of the general public. Contributors include Scott Althaus, Stephen Earl Bennett, Philip E. Converse, Samuel DeCanio, James S. Fishkin, Jeffrey Friedman, Doris A. Graber, Russell Hardin, Donald Kinder, Arthur Lupia, Samuel L. Popkin, Ilya Somin, and Gregory W. Wawro.This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society.

In The Rhetorical Presidency, Jeffrey Tulis argues that the president’s relationship to the public has changed dramatically since the Constitution was enacted: while previously the president avoided any discussions of public policy so as to avoid demagoguery, the president is now expected to go directly to the public, using all the tools of rhetoric to influence public policy. This has effectively created a "second" Constitution that has been layered over, and in part contradicts, the original one. In our volume, scholars from different subfields of political science extend Tulis’s perspective to the judiciary and Congress; locate the origins of the constitutional change in the Progressive Era; highlight the role of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and the mass media in transforming the presidency; discuss the nature of demagoguery and whether, in fact, rhetoric is undesirable; and relate the rhetorical presidency to the public’s ignorance of the workings of a government more complex than the Founders imagined. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society.

Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1820) articulated a startling new vision of modern society as an integrated whole governed by the principle of freedom—a vision that profoundly altered political theory and, through Hegel’s influence on Marx, deeply changed the world in which we live. Yet Hegel’s thought is so notoriously obscure that it is difficult to pull together its many complex threads in order to understand what he accomplished and how he managed to do it.In this volume, leading political theorists and philosophers attempt to illuminate the impact of Hegel by looking back on the Philosophy of Right after two centuries, shedding light on some of its most controversial elements. Among the topics discussed are Hegel’s theory of bureaucracy, Marx’s critique of that theory, Hegel’s alternative to nationalism, his political cosmology, his critique of natural law, his organic idea of the good, and his view of totality. The contributors are Frederick Beiser, Shterna Friedman, Darren Nah, Frederick Neuhouser, Angelica Nuzzo, Alan Patten, Terry Pinkard, Paul Rosenberg, and Jacob Roundtree.This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Review.

Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1820) articulated a startling new vision of modern society as an integrated whole governed by the principle of freedom—a vision that profoundly altered political theory and, through Hegel’s influence on Marx, deeply changed the world in which we live. Yet Hegel’s thought is so notoriously obscure that it is difficult to pull together its many complex threads in order to understand what he accomplished and how he managed to do it.In this volume, leading political theorists and philosophers attempt to illuminate the impact of Hegel by looking back on the Philosophy of Right after two centuries, shedding light on some of its most controversial elements. Among the topics discussed are Hegel’s theory of bureaucracy, Marx’s critique of that theory, Hegel’s alternative to nationalism, his political cosmology, his critique of natural law, his organic idea of the good, and his view of totality. The contributors are Frederick Beiser, Shterna Friedman, Darren Nah, Frederick Neuhouser, Angelica Nuzzo, Alan Patten, Terry Pinkard, Paul Rosenberg, and Jacob Roundtree.This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Review.

In The Rhetorical Presidency, Jeffrey Tulis argues that the president’s relationship to the public has changed dramatically since the Constitution was enacted: while previously the president avoided any discussions of public policy so as to avoid demagoguery, the president is now expected to go directly to the public, using all the tools of rhetoric to influence public policy. This has effectively created a "second" Constitution that has been layered over, and in part contradicts, the original one. In our volume, scholars from different subfields of political science extend Tulis’s perspective to the judiciary and Congress; locate the origins of the constitutional change in the Progressive Era; highlight the role of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and the mass media in transforming the presidency; discuss the nature of demagoguery and whether, in fact, rhetoric is undesirable; and relate the rhetorical presidency to the public’s ignorance of the workings of a government more complex than the Founders imagined. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society.