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OverviewBy the mid-nineteenth-century, 'public opinion' emerged as a new form of authority in Upper Canada. Contemporaries came to believe that the best answer to common questions arose from deliberation among private individuals. Older conceptions of government, sociability and the relationship between knowledge and power were jettisoned for a new image of Upper Canada as a deliberative democracy. The Capacity to Judge asks what made widespread public debate about common issues possible; why it came to be seen as desirable, even essential; and how it was integrated into Upper Canada's constitutional and social self-image. Drawing on an international body of literature indebted to Jürgen Habermas and based on extensive research in period newspapers, Jeffrey L. McNairn argues that voluntary associations and the press created a reading public capable of reasoning on matters of state, and that the dynamics of political conflict invested that public with final authority. He traces how contemporaries grappled with the consequences as they scrutinized parliamentary, republican and radical options for institutionalizing public opinion. The Capacity to Judge concludes with a case study of deliberative democracy in action that serves as a sustained defense of the type of intellectual history the book as a whole exemplifies. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Jeffrey McNairnPublisher: University of Toronto Press Imprint: University of Toronto Press Dimensions: Width: 15.00cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 22.60cm Weight: 0.700kg ISBN: 9781442638983ISBN 10: 1442638982 Pages: 480 Publication Date: 01 September 2016 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Tertiary & Higher Education , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsReviewsAuthor InformationJeffrey L. McNairn is an associate professor in the Department of History at Queen's University and winner of the John Bullen Prize awarded by the Canadian Historical Association for the best doctoral dissertation. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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