Democracy Archives - Page 11 of 97

Economy

“Opportunity Zones” Are a Game Only the Rich Can Play

Too often they bring storage facilities and upscale college housing, but not economic prosperity

October 20, 2021 • by Arlene Martínez

On SW Taylor Street in Portland, Oregon, there is a shiny new glass-and-steel building with a fireplace in its grand lobby. Developers got approval for the posh retail and office project in 2016 and, a year later, a local gas utility inked a 20-year lease to house its headquarters there. As it ...

“Opportunity Zones” Are a Game Only the Rich Can Play

Politics

Democratizing Movements v. Constitutional Politics

An introduction to this week’s issue on the future of constitutionalism and democracy

October 13, 2021 • by James Miller

The idea for a symposium in Public Seminar on “Constitutional Politics” grows out of a two-day conference on Liberalism & Democracy: Past, Present, Prospects. I organized these conversations at the New School in February 2019, in collaboration with Helena Rosenblatt, a historian at City University of New York Graduate Center. One of the key participants was Aziz Rana of Cornell University, ...

Constitutional Politics

The Decline and Fall of American Exceptionalism

Why the perception of the Constitution will inevitably be a central part of an extended process of political self-reckoning

October 13, 2021 • by Anthony Barnett

It’s a fact that the United States is no longer the world’s pre-eminent superpower—a change that cannot help but transform America’s political conception of itself. Its decline in relative power will of course take time. The dollar still rules, the military reach of the States is unequalled. But the US has ...

The Decline and Fall of American Exceptionalism

Constitutional Politics

Chile Tries to Write a New Constitution

Progressives in the nation’s Constitutional Convention see an opportunity for creating a more just society

October 13, 2021 • by Jennifer M. Piscopo

In a national referendum held on October 25, 2020, nearly 80 percent of Chileans agreed that the country should have a new constitution, to be written at a convention attended by specially elected delegates. The vote was the climactic result of weeks of paralyzing demonstrations in 2019, as students, feminists, workers, Indigenous peoples, pensioners, and thousands of others had taken to the streets to protest economic and social injustice. With resounding majorities choosing change, Chileans ...

Constitutional Politics

Imagining a Post-Constitutional Political Culture

Amid a racial uprising and calls for “political revolution,” why pretend that our political disputes turn on the “best” reading of an eighteenth-century text, the Constitution?

October 12, 2021 • by Ryan Doerfler and Samuel Moyn

Aziz Rana’s genealogy of American constitutional veneration overturns the conventional wisdom, not merely about the chronology, but also about the reasons for this worshipful attitude towards a document drafted in the late eighteenth century. At the same time, his forthcoming book, Rise of the Constitution, is politically explosive: for it ...

Imagining a Post-Constitutional Political Culture

Constitutional Politics

How to Cure America’s Constitution Worship

Many American states have not only frequently amended their constitutions, but, at least as importantly, have replaced existing constitutions with presumably better, updated, ones

October 12, 2021 • by Sanford Levinson

“Veneration” is a term that James Madison used in Federalist 49, to express the kind of great respect he hoped the new Constitution he had helped write would command in the debate over ratification then raging in America. Yet as Aziz Rana reminds us, many of America’s most notable political ...

How to Cure America’s Constitution Worship

Politics

The Moderates Have to Catch Up

In the fight over his agenda, Biden is making liberals the center

October 6, 2021 • by John Stoehr

I continue to think regime change is a useful way of understanding politics. That’s the idea that American political history turns in cycles. For 40 or 50 years, one party and its ideas prevails over the other with a majority of voters. From the 1930s to the 1970s, it was ...

The Internet

The Fall of Facebook

Plus the insurrection subcommittee prepares to confront Trump and the debt ceiling fight continues

October 5, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

“hello literally everyone,” the official account of Twitter tweeted on Monday afternoon, after Facebook and its affiliated platforms Instagram and WhatsApp went dark at about 11:40 this morning. The Facebook outage lasted for more than six hours and appears to have been caused by an internal error. But the void ...

Politics

Battle of the Budget

What happens when the Republicans filibuster a necessary measure to keep the government operating?

September 29, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

On September 27, the Senate considered a bill to fund the government until December and to raise the debt ceiling. The Republicans joined together to filibuster it. Such a move is extraordinary. Not only did the Republicans vote against a measure that would keep the government operating and keep it from ...

Europe & Central Asia

Goodbye Merkel, Hello … Who?

The German election and what’s to come

September 29, 2021 • by Nicolas Allié

One thing is clear about the 2021 German election: it is going to be consequential. Long-time chancellor and ostensible champion of democratic values, Angela Merkel, is leaving after 16 years in office. The consequences of this action are still uncertain. Germany’s electoral system is unique. Voters elect representatives to the German parliament, or Bundestag, and they cast two votes. The first is for who will represent ...

Politics

Democrats and the Conservative Supreme Court

Is there incentive to attack the court’s legitimacy?

September 28, 2021 • by John Stoehr

Last week, opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote about the sinking reputation of the United States Supreme Court. With respect to a new abortion law in Texas, which invalidates Roe v. Wade, the Post columnist said that, “The nub of the problem is not that (or not only that) voters are angry that the court allowed ...

Democrats and the Conservative Supreme Court

Activism

We Are All “First Liners”

Colombia’s youth are institutionalizing a revolution by building solidarity and insurgent practices that can last

September 22, 2021 • by Aura Angélica Hernández Cárdenas

To learn more about the protests and general strike in Colombia, read Julián Gómez Delgado's essay “The Decline of Colombia’s Centaur State.” One of the most important phenomena of this year’s national strike in Colombia has been las primeras líneas, or “first liners.” Men and women, some reported to be as young ...

Democracy

“Opportunity Zones” Are a Game Only the Rich Can Play

Too often they bring storage facilities and upscale college housing, but not economic prosperity

Democratizing Movements v. Constitutional Politics

An introduction to this week’s issue on the future of constitutionalism and democracy

The Decline and Fall of American Exceptionalism

Why the perception of the Constitution will inevitably be a central part of an extended process of political self-reckoning

Chile Tries to Write a New Constitution

Progressives in the nation’s Constitutional Convention see an opportunity for creating a more just society

Imagining a Post-Constitutional Political Culture

Amid a racial uprising and calls for “political revolution,” why pretend that our political disputes turn on the “best” reading of an eighteenth-century text, the Constitution?

How to Cure America’s Constitution Worship

Many American states have not only frequently amended their constitutions, but, at least as importantly, have replaced existing constitutions with presumably better, updated, ones

The Moderates Have to Catch Up

In the fight over his agenda, Biden is making liberals the center

The Fall of Facebook

Plus the insurrection subcommittee prepares to confront Trump and the debt ceiling fight continues

Battle of the Budget

What happens when the Republicans filibuster a necessary measure to keep the government operating?

Goodbye Merkel, Hello … Who?

The German election and what’s to come

Democrats and the Conservative Supreme Court

Is there incentive to attack the court’s legitimacy?

We Are All “First Liners”

Colombia’s youth are institutionalizing a revolution by building solidarity and insurgent practices that can last

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