What are the environments, the public spaces, in which ordinary people become participants in the complex, ambiguous, engaging conversation about democracy: participators in governance rather than spectators or complainers, victims or accomplices? What are the roots, not simply of movements against oppression, but also of those democratic social movements which both enlarge the opportunities for participation and enhance people's ability to participate in the public world?
In "Free Spaces," Sara M. Evans and Harry C. Boyte argue for a new understanding of the foundations for democratic...

"As Mark Twain said about the weather, everybody talks about the need for a new politics of participation and deliberation, but nobody does anything about it. Harry Boyte has. Through a combination of experience, political analysis, and philosophy, he sho

Throughout history, work has always been the taproot of American democracy, enabling diverse people to forge connections with each other and to address the nation's problems. This book presents an analysis of diverse civic practices. It argues that work is the center of effective citizenship.

Today Americans feel powerless in the face of problems on every front. Such feelings are acute in higher education, where educators are experiencing an avalanche of changes: cost cutting, new technologies, and demands that higher education be narrowly geared to the needs of today's workplace. College graduates face mounting debt and uncertain job prospects, and worry about a coarsening of the mass culture and the erosion of authentic human relationships. Higher education is increasingly seen, and often portrays itself, as a ticket to individual success--a private good, not a public...

Today Americans feel powerless in the face of problems on every front. Such feelings are acute in higher education, where educators are experiencing an avalanche of changes: cost cutting, new technologies, and demands that higher education be narrowly geared to the needs of today's workplace. College graduates face mounting debt and uncertain job prospects, and worry about a coarsening of the mass culture and the erosion of authentic human relationships. Higher education is increasingly seen, and often portrays itself, as a ticket to individual success--a private good, not a public...