The Woodrow Wilson Center Press
Dilemmas of Scale in America's Federal Democracy
In the classical political thought of the West, it was supposed that democracies must be small and direct. Democracy was a form in which all citizens must participate, thus it could exist only on a very circumscribed scale - that of the Greek city-state, in which, ideally, an assembly was limited to the range of the human voice.
As modern nations arose, there arose as well the alternative conception that democracy could be representative. The people were assured of opportunities to render judgment on the officeholders' conduct of office.
Nonetheless, the idea survived that democracy was purer and more attainable on the small scale than on the large, and that its survival on a small scale was indispensable to its attainment on a larger scale.
What People are Saying
Chapter List
Editor's Preface, Martha Derthick
Introduction: City life and Citizenship and Locality, James Q. Wilson
Public-spiritedness and the American Regime, Steven L. Elkin
Part I. Local Self-Government in American Political History
1. The Origins and Influence of Early American Local Self-government, Pauline Maier
2. Localism, Political Parties, and Civic Virtue, Sidney M. Milkis
3. How Many Communities?: The Evolution of American Federalism, Martha Derthick
4. Local Practice in Transition: From Government to Governance, Kathryn Doherty and Clarence N. Stone
Part II. The Place of Locality in Current Policy Choice
5. The Ideo-logics of Urban Land Use Politics, Alan A. Altshuler
6. Local Government and Environmental Policy, Marc K. Landy
7. Local Self-government in Education: Community vs. Citizenship, Gregory R. Weiher and Chris Cookson
8. Net Gains: the Voting Rights Act and Southern Local Government, Richard M. Vallely
9. The People's Court?: Federal Judges and Criminal Justice, William D. Hagedorn and John J. DiIulio Jr
Afterword: Federalism and Community, Philip Selznick.