Informatization is playing an increasingly important role in democratic politics. For some time already, various applications of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are, more or less successfully, used by politicians, representative bodies, political parties and citizens. It is, however, reasonable to believe that informatizaton will be of paramount interest for existing actors and institutions that are involved in public decision-making in a democracy. The advent of telecommunication infrastructures that will enable the use of all kinds of interactive facilities, is considered to be an important step towards a more participative democratic system. Many projects that share a common feature have been set up: their ambition to renew democratic decision-making structures and practises with the help of ICT. Most of these projects can be found at the level of local and/or regional government. In this book, the claim that these projects can reform or strengthen democratic politics is explored and discussed both empirically and theoretically. The research that is presented in this book makes clear that, as far as the role of informatization regarding the functioning of the democratic polity is concerned, it appears that informatization represents both opportunities and threats.

This book relates the concept of civility to rhetorical disposition, and incivility to indisposition. The author discusses classical rhetorical theory and interprets it for use in all interactions, exploring origins in infancy of the rhetorical disposition and the rhetorical indisposition. He provides four case-study chapters of the lives of individuals illustrating unhealthy narcissism and rhetorical failure — Jim Jones, Joseph McCarthy, Paul Morel, and Tiberius Gracchus. These cases illustrate how unfavorable narcissism can give adverse direction to the rhetorical imperative and lead to problems in relationships. Barrett offers a rhetorical corrective.

Traditionally, images have played an important role in politics and policy making, mostly in relation to propaganda and public communication. However, contemporary society is inundated with visual material due to the increasing ubiquity of media and visual technologies that facilitate the production, distribution and consumption of images in new and innovative ways. As such, a visual culture has emerged, and a number of authors have written on visual culture and the technologies which underlie it. However, a clear link to policy making is still lacking. This books links the emergence of this visual culture to policy making and explores how visual culture (and the growing number of technologies used to create and distribute images) influence the course, content and outcome of public policy making. It examines how visual culture and policy making in contemporary society are intertwined, elaborating concepts such as power, framing and storytelling. It then links this to technology, and the way this can enhance power, transparency, registration, surveillance and communication. Dealing with the entire cycle of public policy making, from agenda-setting, to policy design, decision making to evaluation, the book contains diverse international case studies including water management, risk management, live-stock diseases, minority integration, racism, freedom of speech, healthcare, disaster evaluation and terrorism.

A major three-volume bibliography, including an additional supplement, of an annotated listing of American Studies monographs published between 1900 and 1988.