Reconnecting with the sources of decisions that affect us, and with the processes of democracy itself, is at the heart of 21st-century sustainable communities. Slow Democracy chronicles the ways in which ordinary people have mobilized to find local solutions to local problems. It invites us to bring the advantages of "slow" to our community decision making. Just as slow food encourages chefs and eaters to become more intimately involved with the production of local food, slow democracy encourages us to govern ourselves locally with processes that are inclusive, deliberative, and citizen powered. Susan Clark and Woden Teachout outline the qualities of real, local decision making and show us the range of ways that communities are breathing new life into participatory democracy around the country. We meet residents who seize back control of their municipal water systems from global corporations, parents who find unique solutions to seemingly divisive school-redistricting issues, and a host of other citizens across the nation who have designed local decision-making systems to solve the problems unique to their area in ways that work best for their communities. Though rooted in the direct participation that defined our nation's early days, slow democracy is not a romantic vision for reigniting the ways of old. Rather, the strategies outlined here are uniquely suited to 21st-century technologies and culture.If our future holds an increased focus on local food, local energy, and local economy, then surely we will need to improve our skills at local governance as well.

Comparative constitutional change has recently emerged as a distinct field in the study of constitutional law. It is the study of the way constitutions change through formal and informal mechanisms, including amendment, replacement, total and partial revision, adaptation, interpretation, disuse and revolution. The shift of focus from constitution-making to constitutional change makes sense, since amendment power is the means used to refurbish constitutions in established democracies, enhance their adaptation capacity and boost their efficacy. Adversely, constitutional change is also the basic apparatus used to orchestrate constitutional backslide as the erosion of liberal democracies and democratic regression is increasingly affected through legal channels of constitutional change. Routledge Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Change provides a comprehensive reference tool for all those working in the field and a thorough landscape of all theoretical and practical aspects of the topic. Coherence from this aspect does not suggest a common view, as the chapters address different topics, but reinforces the establishment of comparative constitutional change as a distinct field. The book brings together the most respected scholars working in the field, and presents a genuine contribution to comparative constitutional studies, comparative public law, political science and constitutional history.

Drawing on the tools of game design to fix democracy. Anyone who has ever been to a public hearing or community meeting would agree that participatory democracy can be boring. Hours of repetitive presentations, alternatingly alarmist or complacent, for or against, accompanied by constant heckling, often with no clear outcome or decision. Is this the best democracy can offer? In Making Democracy Fun, Josh Lerner offers a novel solution for the sad state of our deliberative democracy: the power of good game design. What if public meetings featured competition and collaboration (such as team challenges), clear rules (presented and modeled in multiple ways), measurable progress (such as scores and levels), and engaging sounds and visuals? These game mechanics would make meetings more effective and more enjoyable—even fun. Lerner reports that institutions as diverse as the United Nations, the U.S. Army, and grassroots community groups are already using games and game-like processes to encourage participation. Drawing on more than a decade of practical experience and extensive research, he explains how games have been integrated into a variety of public programs in North and South America. He offers rich stories of game techniques in action, in children's councils, social service programs, and participatory budgeting and planning. With these real-world examples in mind, Lerner describes five kinds of games and twenty-six game mechanics that are especially relevant for democracy. He finds that when governments and organizations use games and design their programs to be more like games, public participation becomes more attractive, effective, and transparent. Game design can make democracy fun—and make it work.

During the 1970s todays Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung, BMBWF) supported the founding of the Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and the Austrian Chair at Stanford University in California. These foundings were the initial incentives for the worldwide `spreading' of similar institutions; currently, nine Centers for Austrian and Central European Studies exist in seven countries on three continents. The funding of the Ministry enables to connect senior scholars with young scholars, to help young PhD students, to participate in and to benefit from the scientific connection of experienced researchers, and to get in touch with the national scientific community by `sniffing scientific air', as the Austrians like to say. Furthermore, it aims to avoid prejudices, and to spread a better understanding and knowledge about Austria and Central Europe by promoting scientific exchange.

This book aims to map out ways of designing and planning products so that their value is sustained and they can be kept in use for a longer time. It tells the story of Vivian, a name that represents any product. The life oF Vivian is traced from preconception, through development, purchase and long period of use, right up to oblivion. Vivian's story is embedded in the information and experiences that the Eternally Yours Foundation has gathered over the past years, culminating in the 'Time in design' conference organized in October 2003 in cooperation with the Long Now Foundation. This book includes most of the lectures by, among many others, Ezio Manzini, Brian Eno, Gustaf Beumer and John Thackara - introduction.

This book examines Egypt’s turbulent and contradictory political period (2011-2015) as key to understanding contemporary politics in the country and the developments in the Arab region after the mass protests in 2010/11, more broadly. In doing so, it breaks new ground in the study of political representation, providing analytical innovation to the study of disenchantment with politics, democracy fatigue and social cohesion. Based on five years of intense fieldwork, the author provides rare insights into local and national ideas on politics, justice and identity, and on how people situate themselves and Egypt in the regional and global context. It analyzes how the creation of an alternate, political system was discussed and negotiated among the Egyptian population, the military, the government, public figures, the media, and international actors, and yet nevertheless today, Egypt has a new political regime that is the most repressive in the countries’ modern history. Finally, it recalls the emotions and perceptions of individuals and collectives and interlinks these local perspectives to national events and developments through time. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of democratization and authoritarianism, Middle East Studies, political representation and informality, collective action, and more broadly to cultural studies and international relations.

This book introduces readers to the concepts of sustainability and philosophy of slowness for the management of public entities such as cities or regions. While many urban communities face economic challenges that clearly show the limitations of growth and ever-increasing speed, this book explores an alternative, thought-provoking standpoint in five chapters. The first chapter explains the importance and essence of slowness, smallness and sustainability for public organizations, while the second addresses the concept of “slow life” in an emotional society. Chapter three examines the issue of “slow management” and presents arguments for the value of small businesses as the true foundation of the economy. Chapter four rounds out the coverage with a focus on agriculture. Finally, in chapter five, the authors discuss the overall benefits of a “slow and curvy” management style in order to provide happiness, economic and social sustainability.

We regard genocidal violence as worse than other sorts of violence—perhaps the worst there is. But what does this say about what we value about the genos on which nations are said to be founded? This is an urgent question for democracies. We value the mode of being in time that anchors us in the past and in the future, that is, among those who have been and those who might yet be. If the genos is a group constituted by this generational time, the demos was invented as the anti-genos, with no criterion of inheritance and instead only occurring according to the interruption of revolutionary time. Insofar as the demos persists, we experience it as a sort of genos, for example, the democratic nation state. As a result, democracies are caught is a bind, disavowing genos-thinking while cherishing the temporal forms of genos-life; they abhor genocidal violence but perpetuate and disguise it. This is the genocide paradox. O’Byrne traces the problem through our commitment to existential categories from Aristotle to the life taxonomies of Linneaus and Darwin, through anthropologies of kinship that tether us to the social world, the shortfalls of ethical theory, into the history of democratic theory and the defensive tactics used by real existing democracies when it came to defining genocide for the U.N. Genocide Convention. She argues that, although models of democracy all make room for contestation, they fail to grasp its generational structure or acknowledge the generational content of our lives. They cultivate ignorance of the contingency and precarity of the relations that create and sustain us. The danger of doing so is immense. It leaves us unprepared for confronting democracy’s deficits and its struggle to entertain multiple temporalities. In addition, it leaves us unprepared for understanding the relation between demos and violence, and the ability of good enough citizens to tolerate the slow-burning destruction of marginalized peoples. What will it take to envision an anti-genocidal democracy?