Left Realism and Social Democratic Renewal

Realism and Social Science

From Democratic Dualism to Political Realism: Transforming the Constitution

In the latest volume of Bruce Ackerman’s We the People, he sets out to demonstrate that the Constitution has been legitimately amended by “unconventional” means, or by mechanisms other than the Article V amendment process. In making this argument, Ackerman offers a rich constitutional history of the Founding period, the Reconstruction era, and the New Deal. He successfully demonstrates that unc...

The renewal of democratic practices in knowledge societies

Reconciling Social Constructivism and Realism in GIS

An epistemological and discursive divide separates critics of GIS and its researchers. An assumption exists among many users and developers of GIS that the technology models reality and can thus be used to predict and explain spatial processes. This realist position is not sanctioned by social science critics of GIS who have focused efforts on illustrating the social effects of technology as we...

Democratic Innovation and Social Participation in Brazil

Democratic government is not the same as innovation in government. Government is an important component of democratic theory in the ways in which it relates to the polity as a whole and implements demands made by the people. However, government in classical democratic theory is not seen for its capacity to innovate. In this essay, the issue of innovation is approached through the idea of interf...