1. The Abolition of the State
   Anarchist & Marxist Perspectives
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 2007
   Both Anarchists and Marxists believe that it will be possible to do away with the state. But what do they mean by that? What is the state, after all? What institutions, if any, would be necessary to replace its functions? Would a transitional “dictatorship of the proletariat” be needed or will it be possible to immediately abolish the state? Does modern technology require a centralized institution such as the state? Throughout the history of revolutions, the people have created workplace councils and neighborhood assemblies--how could these replace the state?
2. Arundhati Roy on Obama's Wars, India and Why Democracy Is "The Biggest Scam in the World"
   Resource Type: Film/Video
   First Published: 2010
   Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy on President Obama, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, India and Kashmir and much more. Roy also talks about her journey deep into the forests of central India to report on the Maoist insurgency.
3. Beyond the Abdication of Power
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1978
   Presents an argument against the views expressed by Kokopeli and Lakey in Leadership For Change. Raises thought provoking issues it raises and demonstrates situations and assumptions under which consensus is not appropriate.
4. Blocking Progress 
   Consensus Decision Making In The Anti-Nuclear Movement
   Resource Type: Article
   First Published: 1983
   Howard Ryan maintains that consensus is wrong in principle and in practice: "The problem is not so much that individuals are being irresponsible or somehow abusing the consensus process. The problem lies in giving individuals that kind of power in the first place. Consensus turns majority rule into minority rule. That's not democracy."
   
5. Bowling Alone
   The Collapse and Revival of American Community
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 2000
   Bowling Alone documents the rise and fall of community activity in the twentieth century in the United States and the social changes this reflects. It offers all the evidence, the confirmatory and the contradictory, to give a complete look at trends of community involvement and how increased social capital can benefit everybody.
6. Canada After Harper
   His Ideology-fuelled Attack on Canadian Society and Values, and How We Can Resist and Create the Country We Want
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 2015
   Essays documenting the breadth and depth of the Harper government's attack on institutions, policies, and programs that embody values and principles shared by most Canadians: education, health care, women's rights, science and research, the economy, labour unions, water and natural resources, and Aboriginal affairs.
7. Center for Democracy and Technology
   Resource Type: Website
   Addresses issues of Internet censorhip and privacy.
8. Changing The Cogs
   Activists and the Politics of Technology
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1979
   What are the best ways to achieve beneficial change in society? Will widespread use of solar energy and other renewable energy sources bring about a good society? What technologies will be promoted by vested interests in government and big business?
9. Chomsky on MisEducation
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 2000
   Chomsky critiques the education system and discusses what education could be like in a democratic society.
10. A Citizen Legislature 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1985
    Arguing from the premise that the present electoral system is unrepresentative and promotes corruption, the authors propose going back to the Athenian system of choosing representatives: by lottery.
11. Communication for and Against Democracy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1989
    This anthology explores the circumstances in which communication serves at times as an instrument of repression and domination, and at others as a support for human emancipation.
12. Connexions
    Volume 3, Number 5 - September 1978
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1978
    
13. Connexions
    Volume 4, Number 1 - February 1979 - National Security/Securite Nationale
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1979
    
14. Connexions Digest
    Volume 12, Number 1 - Fall 1988 - A Social Change Sourcebook
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1988
    
15. Connexions Digest
    Issue 50 - December 1989 - A Social Change Sourcebook
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1989
    
16. Consensus decision-making 
    Connexipedia Article
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2010
    Article about the group decision making process known as consensus decision-making.
17. Co-ops, Communes and Collectives: Experiments In Social Change in the 1960's and 1970's
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1979
    Contains case studies of alternative organizations and articles addressing issues relevant to how such organizations function. Particularly good is Jane J. Mansbridge's paper, "The Agony of Inequality." Also recommended: "Conditions for Democracy: Making Participatory Organizations Work" Joyce Rothschild-Whitt.
18. The Decline of the Democratic Ideal
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1990
    Noam Chomsky contemplates the disappearance of democratic ideals by examining the American reactions to the outcome of the 1990 elections in Nicaragua.
19. Democracy Against Capitalism 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1995
    Wood provides a brilliant explication and defense of the key theoretical concepts relevant to socialism, understood to be the most radical social and economic democracy.
20. Democratic Theory
    Essays in Retrieval
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1973
    
21. The Demos Versus 'We, the People': from Ancient to Modern Conceptions of Citizenship
    From Democracy Against Capitalism, Chapter 7
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1995
    
22. Destroying the Commons 
    How the Magna Carta Became a Minor Carta
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
    Our rights and liberties are under ever-increasing attack.
23. A Different Sort of Democracy 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1997
    We do not want to suggest that the democracy of ancient Greece was perfect or that it can be easily be copied in the modern world. Greece was burdened by the dual crimes of slavery and the inferior status of women, as were all ancient societies in the Mediterranean basin and in Asia. What distinguished ancient Athens was that, in that society, human beings began to break out to produce new forms of self-government. That they could not solve all the evils of that time should not be surprising.
24. Direct Action for Democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1999
    Direct action protests are about people taking power for themselves, instead of leaving politics to professional politicians.
25. Direct democracy
    Connexipedia Article
    Resource Type: Article
    A form of democracy wherein sovereignty is lodged in the assembly of all citizens who choose to participate.
26. Drawing the Line
    A pamphlet
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1946   Published: 1962
    
27. Educating for a Change
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1991
    For the authors of Ecuating for a Change, genuine democracy does not happen solely through our political and educational work. Democratic processes and practices are essential elements in achieving a truly participatory society. The books offers theory and practical tools for consciously applying the principles of democratic practice to daily work.
    
28. The End of Politics
    Corporate Power and the Decline of the Public Sphere
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2000
    From the events of privatization, economic globalization, spread of violence and gun culture, and the end of the cold war, Boggs explores the depoliticization process in the United States.
29. Everything under control, Life in a managed society
    New Internationalist April 1985
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1985
    A deluge of commercial messages are subtly undermining the consumer's ability to make autonomous decisions. Discussion of why, and how, social control is becoming the norm in Western societies.
30. The Expo Files
    Articles by the Crusading Journalist
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2012
    Collected here for the first time are Stieg Larsson's essays and articles on right-wing extremism and racism, on violence against women and women's rights, on homophobia and honour killings.
31. 'Free speech' - as long as it doesn't offend anyone 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2009
    On the issue of free speech most of the right and much of the left are in agreement, and so too are many liberals, activists, and human rights apparatchiks. They hold essentially the same position on freedom of expression - they are for it -in principle-, but only so long as it isn't used to express views that they find unacceptable or offensive. What they disagree about is merely who gets to decide what ideas are unacceptable, i.e., who gets to censor who.
    
32. Funeral Oration for the Athenian War Dead
    Resource Type: Article
    Speech was given by the Athenian leader Pericles after the first battles of the Peloponnesian war.
33. Global Showdown
    How the New Activists are Fighting Global Corporate Rule
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2001
    Documents the new forces of resistance and invitates readers to join the struggle for alternatives.
34. The Great Turning
    From Empire to Earth Community
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2006
    
35. The History of Democracy 
    A Marxist Interpretation
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2013
    Roper traces the history of democracy from ancient Athens to the emergence of liberal representative and socialist participatory democracy. He argues that democracy cannot be understood separately from the social and economic contexts in which democratic states operate.
36. In Defence of Democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
    On Jacques Berlinerblau's book How to Be Secular.
37. Inventing the People
    The Rise of Popular Sovereignity in England and America
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1989
    The author makes the case that the United States has remained politically stable because the Founding Fathers invented the idea of the American people and used it to impose a government on the new nation. Morgan ties the notion of popular sovereignty to the older, equally fictional notion, the "divine right of kings."
38. Jewish Canadians Concerned About Suppression of Criticism of Israel
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2009
    We are Jewish Canadians concerned about all expressions of racism, anti-Semitism, and social injustice. We believe that the Holocaust legacy "Never again" means never again for all peoples. It is a tragic turn of history that the State of Israel, with its ideals of democracy and its dream of being a safe haven for Jewish people, causes immeasurable suffering and injustice to the Palestinian people.
39. The Joy of Revolution 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1997   Published: 2007
    Knabb says "What is needed, I believe, is a worldwide participatory-democracy revolution that would abolish both capitalism and the state. This is admittedly a big order, but I'm afraid that nothing less can get to the root of our problems. It may seem absurd to talk about revolution; but all the alternatives assume the continuation of the present system, which is even more absurd."
40. Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution
    Volume III: The Dictatorship of the Proletariat
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1986
    Hal Draper examines how Marx and Marxism dealt with the issue of dictatorship in relation to the revolutionary use of force and repression, particularly as this debate has centered on the use of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat." Draper strips away the layers of misinterpretation and misinformation that have accumulated over the years to show what Marx and Engels themselves meant by the term.
41. Kenya's Opposition Party
    Against The Current vol. 133
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2008
    That the elections in Kenya were rigged is no longer in question. And for most people that the culprit is the sitting president, sworn in so quickly that the ceremony has been jokingly likened to a lightning wedding, is no longer a question.
42. Manufacturing Consent 
    The Political Economy of the Mass Media
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1988
    Contrary to the usual image of the press and cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitious in its search for truth, Herman and Chomsky depict how an underlying elite consensus largely structures all facets of the news. They analyze how issues are framed and topics chosen, and the way in which the marketplace and the economics of publishing significantly shape the news.
43. The Meaning of Democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1996
    Our democratic system: a safe election every four years or so in which voters choose between corporate-dominated parties whose policies are virtually indistinguishable on all fundamental issues.
44. New Democracy Internet site
    Resource Type: Website
    Supports a democratic revolution to overthrow corporate capitalism, but opposes socialism. Features short articles on labour issues, the deficit, education.
45. No Platform Won't Work
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2009
    It is ridiculous for anyone to think that you can defeat the BNP by silencing them. A sinister thought, when silenced, only gets wider currency in the subterranean world where everything 'establishment' is viewed as a conspiracy. Sunlight is the best disinfectant
46. On Democracy As A Good
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2013
    Is democracy good in itself? Exploring the impact of democracy during and after the Arab Spring.
47. On Organization 
    Resource Type: Article
    Discusses the democratic organizational forms appropriate to libertarian socialist organizations.
    
48. On Revolution
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1963   Published: 1968
    Arendt examines the American, French, and Russian revolutions and draws conclusions about the meaning of revolution.
49. One Market Under God
    Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2000
    
50. One Vote for Democracy 
    Consensus vs. democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1986
    Makes the case that the democratic model is better than the consensus model for activist group decision-making.
51. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - July 2, 2016
    Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, and Contempt for Democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    Brexit, the British vote to leave the European Union, has thrown the political elites into turmoil and confusion. The referendum was supposed to be a safe political manoeuvre, a way to produce an appearance of democratic legitimacy for the profoundly undemocratic structures of the EU. The gambit turned out to be a spectacular miscalculation, as millions of people turned out to express their opposition to a state of affairs that is leaving the majority worse off while enriching a small minority. This issue of Other Voices looks at the Brexit referendum, elite loathing for democracy, and the related attempt to get rid of Labour's leftwing leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
52. Our Generation
    Volume 6 Number 4
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1969
    
53. Our Generation
    Volume 7 Number 3
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1970
    
54. Palestinian Democracy
    Against The Current vol. 121
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2006
    Few elections throughout the world have been perceived by the local population, as well as international observers, as democratic and transparent as the Palestinian ones. At first glance, Palestine seems to be the perfect example of the “democratization of the Middle East” that President George W. Bush and his administration are fighting for.
55. Participatory Democracy
    Prospects for Democratizing Democracy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2008
    Twenty or more arguments for participatory democracy written contributors including Goerge Woodcock, Murray Bookchin, Gerry Hunnius, Colin Ward, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, and Don Calhoun.
56. Passionate Declarations
    Essays on War and Justice
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1990   Published: 2003
    Essays looking at American political ideology.
57. People or Personnel and Like a Conquered Province 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1968
    Goodman offers his analysis of what is wrong with American society, and what could be done about it.
58. Planning As Learning: The Education of Citizen Activists
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1994
    Phd thesis focusing on the learning undertaken by members of citizens' groups involved in land use planning.
59. Pragmatics of Community Organization
    First Edition
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1986
    Information on how to plan action, how to organize meetings, how to train participants for action, how to negotiate, and how to end a particular exercise in community organization.
60. Que se vayan todos! Krise und Widerstand in Argentinien
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2003
    A collection of essays studying noncapitalist collectivism.
61. Radical Democracy 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1997
    Lummis revives the meaning of democratic struggle and critques the economic and technological processes that have hindered its growth.
62. Radical Digressions 
    Resource Type: Website
    First Published: 2006   Published: 2017
    Ulli Diemer's website/blog featuring comment from a radical left-libertarian Marxist perspective.
    
63. The Real World of Democracy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1965
    Macpherson examines the rival ideas of democracy — the communist, Third World, and Western-liberal variants — and their impacts on one another.
64. Reveille for Radicals 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1946   Published: 1969
    Alinksy connects his theoretical notions on radicalism to practical movements and events.
65. Rights and Liberties
    Introduction to Volume 9, Number 2, of the Connexions Digest (Rights & Liberties issue)
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1984
    Civil liberties and human rights appear as a key dimension in almost every other field of social justice and social change, but those who seek a freer and more just society cannot rely on the state to achieve their goals.
66. A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense 
    Find Your Inner Chomsky
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2005   Published: 2008
    What must a citizen in a democracy know to make the word democracy meaningful? Baillargeon provides readers with the tools to see through everyday spin and jargon -- from politics to advertising, from mysticism to news reporting.
67. Socialism.ca 
    Resource Type: Website
    First Published: 2016
    A gateway to resources about socialism, socialist history, and socialist ideas, compiled by Connexions.
68. Sustaining Democracy?
    Journalism and the Politics of Objectivity
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1998
    Tthe authors argue that "the regime of objectivity" should give way to a journalism aimed at sustaining democracy.
69. Taking the Risk Out of Democracy 
    Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1995   Published: 1997
    The twentieth-century history of corporate propaganda practiced by U.S. businesses and the ways in which such corporate propaganda was exported to, and adopted by, other western democracies especially the United Kingdom and Australia.
70. The Two Souls of Socialism 
    Socialism from Above vs. Socialism from Below
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1960   Published: 1970
    It was Marx who finally brought the two ideas of socialism and democracy together, because he developed a theory which made the synthesis possible for the first time. The heart of the theory is this proposition: that there is a social majority which has the interest and motivation to change the system, and that the aim of socialism can be the education and mobilization of this mass-majority. This is the exploited class, the working class, from which comes the eventual motive-force of revolution. Hence, a socialism-from-below is possible, on the basis of a theory that sees the revolutionary potentialities in the broad masses, even if they seem backward at a given time and place. Marxism came into being in self-conscious struggle against the advocates of the Educational Dictatorship, the Savior-Dictators, the revolutionary elitists, the communist authoritarians, as well as the philanthropic dogooders and bourgeois liberals.
71. The Tyranny of Structurelessness 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1970
    Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a "structureless" group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved.
72. Untying the Knot
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1984
    
73. We Make the Road By Walking 
    Conversations on education and social change
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1990
    Horton, the founder of the Highlander Folk School, and Freire, a Brazilian education leader, are from two different backgrounds, but their shared views on the use of participatory education in bringing about social change are the basis for this thought-provoking book.
74. What Do We Do Now? Building a Social Movement in the Aftermath of Free Trade 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1989
    We have the potential to create a social movement in this country that goes beyond single-issue organizing to work toward an integrated vision of a more just and caring society.

Experts on Demokratische Werte in the Sources Directory

1. Article 19
2. Connexions
3. Council of Europe
4. Ulli Diemer
5. International Forum on Globalization
6. Shanghai Cooperation Organization
7. United Nations Human Rights Council