UNDP: Social Media, Accountability, and Public Transparency in Eastern Europe and CIS (2011)

The domination of the executive over other branches of the government and the media is frequent in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), but the rapid development of social media is changing this pattern by transforming personal conversations and individual opinions into a subject of public debate.

Publisher UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre, October 2011

review (Eva Vozárová, Fair-play Alliance)

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View online (Issuu.com)

Lawrence Lessig: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (2011)

In an era when special interests funnel huge amounts of money into our government—driven by shifts in campaign-finance rules and brought to new levels by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission—trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress, and that business interests wield control over our legislature.

With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how we arrived at this crisis: how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and reductive logic—and instead using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left—Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He plumbs the issues of campaign financing and corporate lobbying, revealing the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system. He puts the issues in terms that nonwonks can understand, using real-world analogies and real human stories. And ultimately he calls for widespread mobilization and a new Constitutional Convention, presenting achievable solutions for regaining control of our corrupted—but redeemable—representational system. In this way, Lessig plots a roadmap for returning our republic to its intended greatness.

While America may be divided, Lessig vividly champions the idea that we can succeed if we accept that corruption is our common enemy and that we must find a way to fight against it. In REPUBLIC, LOST, he not only makes this need palpable and clear—he gives us the practical and intellectual tools to do something about it.

Publisher Twelve, New York/Boston, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, October 2011
ISBN 0446576425, 9780446576420
384 pages

CallAConvention.org, a movement to organize the call for a convention.
Convention.idea.informer.com website allows anyone to propose and vote on constitutional amendments.
video archive of the Conference on the Constitutional Convention (September 2011)
RootStrikers activist network

interview with the author (video, DemocracyNow!, January 2012), passage about a Constitutional Convention
commentary (Alesh Houdek, TheAtlantic.com, November 2011)
review (Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times, December 2011)

author
author’s book presentation (video)
publisher
wikipedia
google books

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