Corey Brettschneider’s Post

7 reasons the book - "How to Think Politically" - is a must read "How to Think Politically" by James Bernard Murphy and Graeme Garrard is a book that explores fundamental concepts and principles in political thinking. Here are seven key points from the book: 1. Critical Thinking: The book emphasizes the importance of critical thinking in political analysis. Murphy and Garrard encourage readers to question assumptions, evaluate evidence, and consider alternative perspectives when examining political issues. 2. Political Ideologies: Murphy and Garrard provide an overview of major political ideologies, including liberalism, conservatism, socialism, and nationalism. They explore the core principles and values of each ideology and how they shape political beliefs and behavior. 3. Power and Authority: The book examines the nature of power and authority in politics. Murphy and Garrard discuss different forms of power, such as coercion, persuasion, and legitimacy, and how they are exercised within political systems. 4. Political Institutions: Murphy and Garrard analyze the role of political institutions in shaping political processes and outcomes. They explore concepts such as democracy, authoritarianism, federalism, and separation of powers, highlighting their impact on governance and policymaking. 5. Political Culture: The book discusses the importance of political culture in shaping political attitudes and behavior. Murphy and Garrard examine how factors such as history, religion, ethnicity, and social values influence political identities and allegiances. 6. Public Opinion and Media: Murphy and Garrard explore the role of public opinion and the media in politics. They discuss how public opinion is formed, measured, and influenced, as well as the impact of media framing, bias, and agenda-setting on political discourse. 7. Globalization and Political Change: The book examines the challenges and opportunities presented by globalization in politics. Murphy and Garrard discuss how globalization affects sovereignty, democracy, economic development, and cultural identity, and how political actors respond to these changes. To get a copy of this book, visit our bookshop at www.infoquestbooks.ng or send us a WhatsApp message on +2349059028486

https://lnkd.in/emahExXs Book Bans Are a Warning of Our Endangered Democracy The censorship movement is an attack on freedom and ideas. And it’s growing. Book banning is one of the first signs that a democracy is losing its way, dragging behind it the scorpion’s tail of ignorance and intolerance. The linchpin of democracy used to be freedom of speech. Ironically, the most banned book of all time in America is 1984, George Orwell’s prophetic masterpiece. The American Library Association says attempts to ban or restrict books in 2023 were “the highest in the last 20 years.” According to the network news show 60 Minutes, over 3,000 books were banned in public schools in the United States last year. Texas and Florida led the way. In the Lone Star State, they have devised another way to skew information. In Texas schools, each book about climate change requires the library to stock another with the opposite point of view. Despite the science, it’s equal time for climate change deniers in Texas. In several states, politicians and parents get to make the call on what students can and can’t read. It’s easy to object to a particular book, and even easier to find like-minded people on the internet to organize its banning. It fits in with the anti-elite and authoritarian impulse currently polarizing U.S. politics.

Federalist No. 1 General Introduction For the Independent Journal. Author: Alexander Hamilton To the People of the State of New York: AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind. This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth. Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.

7 reasons the book - "How to Think Politically" - is a must read "How to Think Politically" by James Bernard Murphy and Graeme Garrard is a book that explores fundamental concepts and principles in political thinking. Here are seven key points from the book: 1. Critical Thinking: The book emphasizes the importance of critical thinking in political analysis. Murphy and Garrard encourage readers to question assumptions, evaluate evidence, and consider alternative perspectives when examining political issues. 2. Political Ideologies: Murphy and Garrard provide an overview of major political ideologies, including liberalism, conservatism, socialism, and nationalism. They explore the core principles and values of each ideology and how they shape political beliefs and behavior. 3. Power and Authority: The book examines the nature of power and authority in politics. Murphy and Garrard discuss different forms of power, such as coercion, persuasion, and legitimacy, and how they are exercised within political systems. 4. Political Institutions: Murphy and Garrard analyze the role of political institutions in shaping political processes and outcomes. They explore concepts such as democracy, authoritarianism, federalism, and separation of powers, highlighting their impact on governance and policymaking. 5. Political Culture: The book discusses the importance of political culture in shaping political attitudes and behavior. Murphy and Garrard examine how factors such as history, religion, ethnicity, and social values influence political identities and allegiances. 6. Public Opinion and Media: Murphy and Garrard explore the role of public opinion and the media in politics. They discuss how public opinion is formed, measured, and influenced, as well as the impact of media framing, bias, and agenda-setting on political discourse. 7. Globalization and Political Change: The book examines the challenges and opportunities presented by globalization in politics. Murphy and Garrard discuss how globalization affects sovereignty, democracy, economic development, and cultural identity, and how political actors respond to these changes. To get a copy of this book, visit our bookshop at www.infoquestbooks.ng or send us a WhatsApp message on +2349059028486

New H-Diplo Roundtable Review of Jeremi Suri's _Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy_. New York: Public Affairs, 2022. https://lnkd.in/eh6g_km2   Introduction by Geoffrey Kabaservice, Niskanen Center Reviews by Gregory Downs, University of California, Davis Chandra Manning, Georgetown University Response by Jeremi Suri, University of Texas From the introduction: Jeremi Suri’s latest book, _Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy_, is both a departure from and a continuation of the author’s approach to historical scholarship. It is a departure because Suri, a professor of public affairs and history at the University of Texas at Austin, is best known for his acclaimed studies of twentieth-century US foreign policy, and this analysis of the failure of post-Civil War Reconstruction is a foray into historical terrain outside of his usual era and field of specialization. It is a continuation, however, in that the Northern Republicans’ inability to sustain the imposition of multiracial democracy on the South after the war parallels other examples from American foreign policy of winning the war but losing the peace, which Suri has analyzed to great effect in his previous books. The book also is consistent with Suri’s approach to history partly as a means for engaging and educating the public about the debates and traumas of the present, since he believes it a “myth” that historians can reconstruct the past on its own terms. In this case, Suri aims to make sense of the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol—and the struggles over democracy during the presidency of Donald Trump more generally—as a continuation of the Civil War’s battles between multiracial democracy and white supremacist resistance, which were fought through politics rather than on the battlefield. He also proposes policy remedies to the democratic deficiencies inherited from the American past. 

What is impact? And how does our definition of impact change the way that we measure, evaluate and talk about our work? I recently presented a poster at the American Evaluation Association annual conference in Portland, Oregon where I shared a novel framework that applied researchers and evaluators can use as they make decisions when estimating impact. Want to learn more? Check out our Economic Impact 101 Guidebook: https://lnkd.in/eA-_nm8B

Registration for Foundations of Knowledge Brokering is now OPEN! If you seek to bridge relationships between education practitioners, policymakers, and researchers; the Foundations of Knowledge Brokering program is for you! Learn about the program  https://bit.ly/FdsofKB. #educationresearch   #educationalequity  #educationalleadership  

🎉 I’m happy to announce the publication of my latest paper in Politics and Governance (Cogitatio Press), I delve into the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and preferences for alternative decision-making models. Long story short: conspiracy believers like anything but representative democracy. In my paper, I shift the focus from generic support for democracy to exploring alternative models of decision-making that conspiracy believers might prefer over the status quo of representative democracy. To do so, I used data from a representative survey in Germany, that combined trade-off and ranking items. My findings reveal that conspiracy believers primarily favor direct democracy but also show a somewhat unexpeced preference for expert-driven decision-making––at least as a second-best option. While there's some more uncertainty, my findings suggest that conspiracy believers tend to prefer 'anything but' representative democracy, also showing some support towards autocratic models. You can read the full study here (open access): https://lnkd.in/ezaD6Q-3

📘 Tectonica and Ecanvasser’s new book, "The Age of Junk Politics: A Guide to Transformational Campaigning" by Ned Howey, is out now and available for free download! Our current political era is perhaps one of the most horrific of recent memory - marked by the rise of spectacle-driven, authoritarian, and populist politicians who have exploited a deeply disillusioned electorate. In these dark times, it seems increasingly difficult for candidates with values to win. This book argues that, rather than an aberration on the right, this phenomenon can be attributed in part to current campaign practices across the political spectrum. Dominated by overly transactional tactics and devoid of the meaningful participation and connection that once existed in our everyday civic lives, the resulting trust gap is now culturally endemic and, as a result, corroding our democracies. The book  proposes a renewed paradigm, strategic models and practical advice on how we can return to and innovate towards transformational campaigning in the age of junk politics. Check it out! Link in the comments.

History is a gift of knowledge just waiting to be unwrapped. I didn’t know about the treasures hidden in that gift until much later in life because, as with many of you, exposure to academic history books in school made history seem boring and uninteresting and coupled with research using an encyclopedia … well that is another story … and all I can say is thank heavens for google. I am writing this because I watched the film, LINCOLN, last night and it struck me that the old adage “the more things change the more they remain the same” is truer now than ever. Lincoln was on his own in the fight for equality. His determination to pass the emancipation legislation was met with fierce resistance from the opposition.   He was faced with a war that threatened to tear the country apart. and division and disfunction in the congress rendered the members unable or unwilling to compromise. The narrow margin needed to pass the emancipation proclamation would not be known until the last vote was counted. Real history is full of drama. The drama we face today is the same carnage of war; the same fight for equality; the same division and disfunction in congress; and the same fight for democracy.   The question is: how will the drama end? Time will tell! But the clock is ticking as we wait to know, how narrow will be the margin! Another film representing a crucial time in our history is 1776. Here the initial fight for democracy is depicted in a musical version with the same carnage of war, division in the new congress, and the fight to establish democracy. Even though the theme is serious it is entertaining, beautifully written with humor, and richly embodies the historical figures who shaped our union. You may have to search for 1776 but the effort will be worth it. I for one am grateful that books and film have unwrapped this special gift for me.