"The effort to construct a positive alternative to
social/rational choice theory is highly welcome....The scholarship is
first-rate. This is the strength of the manuscript....The scope of the
literature covered is broad, and there is also remarkable depth of
coverage in all sections...a fresh approach to confronting social choice
theorists and economic theorists of democracy who are sceptical of the
democratic accuracy of voting, preference aggregation and
interest-representation."—Richard Wellen, Professor of Social Sciences,
York University (Canada)
"Behrouzi's Democracy as the Political Empowerment
of the Citizen: Direct-Deliberative e-Democracy offers a careful
account of how modern technology and existing socio-economic
infrastructure can be harnessed to achieve genuine democracy in the United
States. Building on the companion volume, Democracy as the Political
empowerment of the Citizen: The Betrayal of an Ideal, Behrouzi argues
that the ideal of democracy as the sovereignty of the people cannot be
represented but can be empowered by individual citizens exercising their
individuated sovereign powers directly. Through developments such as
e-technologies, Behrouzi argues optimistically that our generation is in
the unique position to be able to establish the first feasible democratic
society in history."—Lesley Jacobs, Professor of Law & Society,
Director, Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought, York
University
"Democracy as the Political Empowerment of the
Citizen: Direct-Deliberative e-Democracy proposes a creative new way
to reconcile participatory democracy with the reality of large-scale mass
society at the beginning of the 21t century. It attempts to harness new
interactive technologies to the existing representative institutions of
liberal democracy. A useful addition to the literature on democratic
theory."—Philip Resnick, Professor of Political Science, University of
British Columbia
"Majid Behrouzi's exhaustive and
illuminating account of democracy as the rule by the people takes on
increased importance with new demands, in the U.S. and around the world,
for citizens' substantive participation in the democratic process.
Behrouzi puts pressure on democracy to live up to its full ideal and
exposes those conceptions of democracy that betray its promise. In his
second volume, he finds the solution in e-democracy-a stunning account
backed by a genuinely illuminating and full theory."—Joseph P. DeMarco,
Professor of Philosophy, Cleveland State University
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