Local Self-Government and the Right to the City

Should we try to “live in the present”? Such is the imperative of modernity, Jed Rubenfeld writes in this important and original work of political theory. Since Jefferson proclaimed that “the earth belongs to the living”—since Freud announced that mental health requires people to “get free of their past”—since Nietzsche

Books about Democracy. The First Century of the National Life. Is Political Self-government a Failure?

The political institutions under which we live today evolved from a revolutionary idea that shook the world in the second part of the eighteenth century: that a people should govern itself. Yet if we judge contemporary democracies by the ideals of self-government, equality and liberty, we find that democracy is

This book presents new research results on the challenges of local politics in different European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and Switzerland, together with theoretical considerations on the further development and strengthening of local self-government. It focuses on analyses of the most recent developments in local democracy

How did constitutionally limited government and democracy emerge in the West? Many scholars from many different perspectives have attempted to answer this question. I identify the emergence of these forms of self-government with early modern nationalism. Broadly speaking, nationalism of the right sort provides indispensable resources both for united popular