Read more
Presents a fresh conceptualization of self-governance as a response to the cutting-edge challenges of populism, paternalism and authoritarianism.
List of contents
Introduction; Part I. Public Entrepreneurship: 1. Public entrepreneurship, competitive governance and polycentricity; 2. Entrepreneurship and collective action; 3. Voluntary actions and institutions: charting the territory; Part II. Citizenship: 4. Citizenship, political competence and civics: the Ostromian perspective; 5. From institutionalism to models of social agents: citizenship in institutionalist context; 6. Citizens' competence, self-governance and the new epistocratic paternalism; Part III. Self-Governance: 7. Anarchy, statism and liberalism: the self-governance alternative; 8. Conservatism, interventionism and social evolution: the self-governance alternative; Conclusions.
About the author
Paul Dragos Aligica is a Senior Research Fellow in the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Virginia, where he teaches in the Economics Department. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was a student of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. He has published extensively on institutional and governance theory, being the author of six books and numerous academic articles, exploring both the foundational and the applied side of alternative governance systems.
Summary
Building on the work of Nobel Prize in Economics winner Elinor Ostrom, the book revisits the theory of political self-governance in the context of recent developments in social sciences and political philosophy. Aligica presents a fresh conceptualization of self-governance as a response to cutting-edge challenges of populism, paternalism and authoritarianism.
Additional text
Advance praise: 'We are beset today by increasing skepticism of the viability and intelligence of democratic self-governance, raising doubts that traditional defenses fail to assuage. In this scholarly and important book, Paul Dragos Aligica shows how the Ostroms' pathbreaking work points to a reconceptualization of democratic citizenship, tying it to an enlightening idea of problem solving through public entrepreneurs. Aligica articulates a compelling vision of the institutions of a diverse and intelligent open society.' Gerald Gaus, James. E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Tucson
