|
Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Crime & criminology
|
Buy Now
The Myth of Mob Rule - Violent Crime and Democratic Politics (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,222
Discovery Miles 12 220
|
|
|
The Myth of Mob Rule - Violent Crime and Democratic Politics (Hardcover)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
Scholars and lay persons alike routinely express concern about the
capacity of democratic publics to respond rationally to emotionally
charged issues such as crime, particularly when race and class
biases are invoked. This is especially true in the United States,
which has the highest imprisonment rate in the developed world, the
result, many argue, of too many opportunities for elected officials
to be highly responsive to public opinion. Limiting the power of
democratic publics, in this view, is an essential component of
modern governance precisely because of the risk that broad
democratic participation can encourage impulsive, irrational and
even murderous demands. These claims about panic-prone mass
publics-about the dangers of 'mob rule'-are widespread and are the
central focus of Lisa L. Miller's The Myth of Mob Rule. Are
democratic majorities easily drawn to crime as a political issue,
even when risk of violence is low? Do they support 'rational
alternatives' to wholly repressive practices, or are they
essentially the bellua multorum capitum, the "many-headed beast,"
winnowing problems of crime and violence down to inexorably harsh
retributive justice? Drawing on a comparative case study of three
countries-the U.S., the U.K. and the Netherlands-The Myth of Mob
Rule explores when and with what consequences crime becomes a
politically salient issue. Using extensive data from multiple
sources, the analyses reverses many of the accepted causal claims
in the literature and finds that: serious violence is an important
underlying condition for sustained public and political attention
to crime; the United States has high levels of both crime and
punishment in part because it has failed, in racially stratified
ways, to produce fundamental collective goods that insulate modern
democratic citizens from risk of violence, a consequence of a
democratic deficit, not a democratic surplus; and finally,
countries with multi-party parliamentary systems are more
responsive to mass publics than the U.S. on crime and that such
responsiveness promotes protection from a range of social risks,
including from excessive violence and state repression.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
You might also like..
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(1)
