Books about Democratizing from Amazon.com

Innovation is rapidly becoming democratized Users, aided by improvements in computer and communications technology, increasingly can develop their own new products and services. These innovating users—both individuals and firms—often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innovation communities and a rich intellectual commons. In Democratizing Innovation, Eric von Hippel looks closely at this emerging system of user-centered innovation. He explains why and when users find it profitable to develop new products and services for themselves, and why it often pays users to reveal their innovations freely for the use of all.

The trend toward democratized innovation can be seen in software and information products—most notably in the free and open-source software movement—but also in physical products. Von Hippel's many examples of user innovation in action range from surgical equipment to surfboards to software security features. He shows that product and service development is concentrated among "lead users," who are ahead on marketplace trends and whose innovations are often commercially attractive.

Von Hippel argues that manufacturers should redesign their innovation processes and that they should systematically seek out innovations developed by users. He points to businesses—the custom semiconductor industry is one example—that have learned to assist user-innovators by providing them with toolkits for developing new products. User innovation has a positive impact on social welfare, and von Hippel proposes that government policies, including R&D subsidies and tax credits, should be realigned to eliminate biases against it. The goal of a democratized user-centered innovation system, says von Hippel, is well worth striving for. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license..
Price: $10.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A volume in the acclaimed Reinventing Social Emancipation series.

Democratizing Democracy shows the development of dual forms of participatory and representative democracy in the global South..
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First published as a testament to the legacy of the -concept made popular by the New Left of the 1960s, and with the perspective of the intervening decades, this book opens up the way for re-examining just what our role must be in the cause of democracy. With its emphasis on citizen participation, here, presented in one volume are 20 or more of the best arguments for participatory democracy written by some of the most relevant contributors to the debate, both in an historic, and in a contemporary, sense.

This wide-ranging collection probes the historical roots of participatory democracy in our political culture, analyzes its application to the problems of modern society, and explores the possible forms it might take in the future on every level of society from the workplace, to the community, to the nation at large.

"The book is, by all odds, the most encompassing one so far in revealing the practical actual subversions that the New Left wishes to visit upon us." -- Washington Post

Apart from the editors, contributors include: George Woodcock, Murray Bookchin, Don Calhoun, Stewart Perry, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, James Gillespis, Gerry Hunnius, John McEwan, Arthur Chickering, Christian Bay, Martin Oppenheimer, Colin Ward.

Dimitrios Roussopoulos is a political economist who has written extensively on social and politico-economic issues. He is the author of several books including The Public Place and Dissidence: Essays Against the Mainstream, and editor of a series of three volumes entitled The Anarchist Papers. He continues to work for local democracy, ecological cities and world peace.

C. George Benello taught sociology at Goddard College, Vermont, until his untimely death. He was a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute and author of From the Ground Up: Essays on Grassroots and Workplace Democracy.

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Expounds upon the ever-increasingly important role that both Northern and Southern voluntary organizations play in the battle to assist the poor in achieving democracy and justice .
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This pioneering book offers a dynamic and global account of Korea's place in the current third wave of democratization Drawing on a unique sample of six national surveys conducted in Korea since 1988, and richly comparative, the book carefully examines the evolution, contours and consequences of Korean democratization from the perspective of Korean people themselves and their experiences throughout the entire course of democratic change. Notably, the book characterizes and distinguishes Korea as a non-Western and Confucian model of democratization..
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From machine-like cities pulsing with roads, electricity grids and waste systems, to industrial-scale farming and GMOs, to chemical manipulation and annihilation of biodiversity, to climate change itself, the world is now—like never before—being physically made, destroyed and remade by humans and their technology. Yet who, if anyone, controls the development and use of technology?

Focusing on the most widespread and persistent technology–chemicals–this groundbreaking volume peels apart the technology debate to look at the relationship between humans, technology and the earth. In addition to focusing on chemical technology and regulation in detail, the book provides a broad penetrating analysis and much-needed clarity and insight into the central science and technology debates at the heart of academic study, risk analysis and mitigation, as well as addressing the domestic and international law, regulation and policy that govern technology and thus our relationship with the material world. This book is vital, thought-provoking reading for everyone in science and technology research, development and study, business and industry and government and civil society involved in any way with using or perhaps abusing technology..
Price: $78.35 [Notify me when price goes down.]

During World War II some 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and detained in concentration camps in several states. These Japanese Americans lost millions of dollars in property and were forced to live in so-called "assembly centers" surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed sentries.

In this insightful and groundbreaking work, Brian Hayashi reevaluates the three-year ordeal of interred Japanese Americans. Using previously undiscovered documents, he examines the forces behind the U.S. government's decision to establish internment camps. His conclusion: the motives of government officials and top military brass likely transcended the standard explanations of racism, wartime hysteria, and leadership failure. Among the other surprising factors that played into the decision, Hayashi writes, were land development in the American West and plans for the American occupation of Japan.

What was the long-term impact of America's actions? While many historians have explored that question, Hayashi takes a fresh look at how U.S. concentration camps affected not only their victims and American civil liberties, but also people living in locations as diverse as American Indian reservations and northeast Thailand..
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Unions have long been a central force in the democratization of national and global governance, and this timely book examines the role of labor in fighting for a more democratic and equitable world. In a clear and compelling narrative, Dimitris Stevis and Terry Boswell explore the past accomplishments and the formidable challenges still facing global union politics. The authors consider whether global union politics has become more active and more influential or has failed to rise to the challenge of global capitalism. All readers interested in global organizations, governance, and social movements will find this deeply informed work an essential resource..
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Heide Fehrenbach analyzes the important role cinema played in the reconstruction of German cultural and political identity between 1945 and 1962. Concentrating on the former West Germany, she explores the complex political uses of film—and the meanings attributed to film representation and spectatorship—during a period of abrupt transition to democracy.

According to Fehrenbach, the process of national redefinition made cinema and cinematic control a focus of heated ideological debate. Moving beyond a narrow political examination of Allied-German negotiations, she investigates the broader social nexus of popular moviegoing, public demonstrations, film clubs, and municipal festivals. She also draws on work in gender and film studies to probe the ways filmmakers, students, church leaders, local politicians, and the general public articulated national identity in relation to the challenges posed by military occupation, American commercial culture, and redefined gender roles. Thus highlighting the links between national identity and cultural practice, this book provides a richer picture of what German reconstruction entailed for both women and men..
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