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Civic Rites explores the religious origins of Western democracy by examining the government of fifth-century BCE Athens in the larger context of ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. Deftly combining history, politics, and religion to weave together stories of democracy's first leaders and critics, Nancy Evans gives readers a contemporary's perspective on Athenian society. She vividly depicts the physical environment and the ancestral rituals that nourished the people of the earliest democratic state, demonstrating how religious concerns were embedded in Athenian governmental processes. The book's lucid portrayals of the best-known Athenian festivals-honoring Athena, Demeter, and Dionysus-offer a balanced view of Athenian ritual and illustrate the range of such customs in fifth-century Athens.

Democracy --- Religion and politics --- History --- Religious aspects --- Athens (Greece) --- Greece --- Politics and government. --- Politics and government --- Religion. --- alcibiades. --- ancient greece. --- athena. --- athenian life. --- athens. --- civic life. --- classical greece. --- demeter. --- democracy. --- democratic institutions. --- dionysus. --- festivals and games. --- greek gods. --- greek scholars. --- incantation. --- institutional religion. --- polytheism. --- private spheres. --- profaning of eleusinian mysteries. --- public spheres. --- religion and politics. --- religious cults. --- religious practices. --- retrospective. --- rites and rituals. --- ritual sacrifice. --- trial of socrates. --- world religion.

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It's a commonplace that citizens in Western democracies are disaffected with their political leaders and traditional democratic institutions. But in Democratic Legitimacy, Pierre Rosanvallon, one of today's leading political thinkers, argues that this crisis of confidence is partly a crisis of understanding. He makes the case that the sources of democratic legitimacy have shifted and multiplied over the past thirty years and that we need to comprehend and make better use of these new sources of legitimacy in order to strengthen our political self-belief and commitment to democracy. Drawing on examples from France and the United States, Rosanvallon notes that there has been a major expansion of independent commissions, NGOs, regulatory authorities, and watchdogs in recent decades. At the same time, constitutional courts have become more willing and able to challenge legislatures. These institutional developments, which serve the democratic values of impartiality and reflexivity, have been accompanied by a new attentiveness to what Rosanvallon calls the value of proximity, as governing structures have sought to find new spaces for minorities, the particular, and the local. To improve our democracies, we need to use these new sources of legitimacy more effectively and we need to incorporate them into our accounts of democratic government. An original contribution to the vigorous international debate about democratic authority and legitimacy, this promises to be one of Rosanvallon's most important books.

Legitimacy of governments. --- Democracy. --- Governments, Legitimacy of --- Legitimacy (Constitutional law) --- Consensus (Social sciences) --- Revolutions --- Sovereignty --- State, The --- General will --- Political stability --- Regime change --- Self-government --- Political science --- Equality --- Representative government and representation --- Republics --- Democracy --- Legitimacy of governments --- Western democracy. --- administration. --- administrative-executive power. --- appropriation. --- bureaucracies. --- bureaucracy. --- care. --- citizens. --- civic life. --- constitution. --- constitutional courts. --- constitutional judges. --- constitutional oversight. --- constitutional review. --- constitutional thought. --- corporatism. --- countermajoritarian difficulty. --- democracy. --- democratic authority. --- democratic ideals. --- democratic impartiality. --- democratic institution. --- democratic institutions. --- democratic legitimacy. --- democratic systems. --- derivative legitimacy. --- direct relations. --- dual legitimacy. --- elections. --- electoral legitimation. --- electoral politics. --- executive functions. --- flexible relations. --- general interest. --- generality. --- government initiatives. --- government intervention. --- government. --- identification. --- identity politics. --- immediate democracy. --- impartiality. --- independent authorities. --- independent commissions. --- indirect democracy. --- informal relations. --- interactive democracy. --- judicial power. --- judicial powers. --- legitimacy. --- majority rule. --- modern individualistic states. --- multiplication. --- new democratic institutions. --- numerical unanimity. --- oversight function. --- participatory democracy. --- particularity. --- pluralization. --- political community. --- political investment. --- political leaders. --- political legitimacy. --- political obligation. --- political representatives. --- presence. --- proximity. --- rational administration. --- reflexive democracy. --- reflexivity. --- regulatory function. --- representation. --- social existence. --- social expectations. --- social gaze. --- substantive unanimity. --- unanimity. --- unelected judges. --- unpolitical democracy.

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When a government in a democracy acts in our name, are we, as citizens, responsible for those acts? What if the government commits a moral crime? The protestor's slogan--"Not in our name!"--testifies to the need to separate ourselves from the wrongs of our leaders. Yet the idea that individual citizens might bear a special responsibility for political wrongdoing is deeply puzzling for ordinary morality and leading theories of democracy. In Our Name explains how citizens may be morally exposed to the failures of their representatives and state institutions, and how complicity is the professional hazard of democratic citizenship. Confronting the ethical challenges that citizens are faced with in a self-governing democracy, Eric Beerbohm proposes institutional remedies for dealing with them. Beerbohm questions prevailing theories of democracy for failing to account for our dual position as both citizens and subjects. Showing that the obligation to participate in the democratic process is even greater when we risk serving as accomplices to wrongdoing, Beerbohm argues for a distinctive division of labor between citizens and their representatives that charges lawmakers with the responsibility of incorporating their constituents' moral principles into their reasoning about policy. Grappling with the practical issues of democratic decision making, In Our Name engages with political science, law, and psychology to envision mechanisms for citizens seeking to avoid democratic complicity.

Democracy --- Moral and ethical aspects. --- Moral and ethical aspects --- John Rawls. --- Justice as Fairness. --- agency. --- associative accounts. --- authority. --- belief. --- citizens. --- citizenship. --- coauthors. --- cognitive biases. --- cognitive burden. --- cognitive partisanship. --- complicity. --- cosubjects. --- decision making. --- delegation. --- deliberation. --- deliberative democracy. --- democracy. --- democratic institutions. --- democratic labor. --- democratic state. --- democratic theory. --- distributive justice. --- elections. --- epistemic virtues. --- ethics. --- government. --- heuristics. --- injustice. --- judicial mechanisms. --- judicial review. --- justice. --- lawmaking. --- macrodemocratic theory. --- marginality. --- microdemocratic theory. --- moral obligations. --- moral value. --- morality. --- nonideal democratic theory. --- participation. --- participatory accounts. --- patriotism. --- peer principle. --- philosopher-citizens. --- plebiscitary mechanisms. --- political science. --- political wrongdoing. --- politics. --- popular constitutionalism. --- practical authority. --- pride. --- principled representation. --- principles theory. --- principles. --- public speech. --- reasoning. --- redundancy. --- regret. --- representation. --- representatives. --- responsibility. --- shared liability. --- social order. --- socioeconomic inequalities. --- superdeliberation. --- superdeliberators. --- triage principle. --- usability principle. --- Political philosophy. Social philosophy --- General ethics