In recent decades a growing number of social scientists like Theda Skocpol whose Diminished Democracy I reviewed in this space 10 20 03 have rediscovered the voluntary associations of civil society that flourish in the social space between government agencies and profit-seeking firms Today bus
Clayton Sinyai
Clayton Sinyai is a trade union activist and the author of Schools of Democracy: A Political History of the American Labor Movement (Cornell, 2006). He is a member of the Catholic Labor Network, the American affiliate of the World Movement of Christian Workers. He can be reached at clayton@catholiclabor.org.
Posted inBooks
Civic Collapse
According to a certain triumphalone might say self-satisfiedview of recent American history our nation today is a far more democratic place than it was 50 years ago Then our republic was defaced in so many ways by invidious discrimination Today thanks to the civil rights crusades and the women r
Posted inBooks
American (Mis)Fortunes
The debate over the compatibility of wealth and democracy is as old as the republic With this truism author and political commentator Kevin Phillips begins Wealth and Democracy From the start we have no doubt where the author stands on that issue Extreme inequalities of wealth he is certain end
Posted inBooks
Defining the Other’
The idea of citizenship has permeated our political atmosphere in recent years Surging immigration legal and illegal has compelled our political leaders and institutions to confront this issue Swelling populations of recently arrived Asians and Latinos have become a social force to be reckoned w
Posted inBooks
Let’s Look at the Record’
Empire Statesman begins appropriately enough by evoking the 1928 September night when a flaming cross greeted Alfred E Smith then governor of New York as his presidential campaign train entered Oklahoma When Smith is remembered today if at all it is for the virulent nativist outburst encount
Posted inBooks
Undervalued
The authors of America rsquo s Forgotten Majority Why the White Working Class Still Matters have set out to attack the conventional wisdom regarding the swing voter responsible for the election outcomes of the 1990 rsquo s Each recent election has produced a flurry of reports attributing the resul
Posted inBooks
Final Solutions?
But Mousie thou art no thy laneIn proving foresight may be vain The best-laid schemes o rsquo mice and menGang aft a-gley An rsquo lea rsquo e us nought but grief an rsquo painFor promis rsquo d joy Robert Burns To a Mouse 1786Robert Burns rsquo s reflections have entered the language as a pr