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2 books match the query 'Save Democracy'

cover of Hope in the Heartlands: Rebuilding Economies to Save Democracy

Hope in the Heartlands

Rebuilding Economies to Save Democracy

John Austin

Michigan State University Press, 2027

Why did the American heartland, once the engine of the world’s most dynamic economy, become the seedbed of its angriest politics? For more than twenty years, John Austin has pursued that question in Flint, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh—and now in Europe’s industrial regions, where many communities face the same reckoning. In Hope in the Heartlands he traces his journey from a minister’s son raised in West Virginia coal country to the man who made Flint and the industrial Midwest his adopted home. He shows how he came to see economic abandonment as the root of democratic decay—and what he and a network of like-minded leaders did about it. From coining the “Blue Economy” to championing “ally-shoring”—rebuilding supply chains across allied democracies—Austin offers a field-tested agenda for renewing left-behind regions. The stakes, he argues, could not be higher.

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cover of Twelve Ways to Save Democracy in Wisconsin

Twelve Ways to Save Democracy in Wisconsin

Matthew Rothschild

University of Wisconsin Press, 2021

Wisconsin, once a progressive stronghold led by Robert La Follette and others, inaugurated far-reaching reforms that broadened public involvement in civic affairs. A wave of innovative social programs aimed at making the state more egalitarian followed. In recent decades, however, the Badger State has become a laboratory for antidemocratic maneuvers that have increased the political influence of the super-rich and corporations while decreasing the power of voters.
 
From tightening campaign finance laws and banning gerrymandering to rooting out structural racism and moving toward economic equality, each chapter focuses on one of the dozen reforms that are required to heal democracy within the state. Rothschild provides an in-depth rationale for each, dismantling the counterarguments against them and exploring the complexities involved in implementing them. He offers concrete proposals and action items for grassroots organizers and concerned community advocates to restore constituent control of state politics. This pocket-sized handbook is essential for politically aware citizens as well as journalists and watchdogs who see Wisconsin as a crucial battleground state and political bellwether for the nation.
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