How to Be a Citizen

C. L. Skach always believed in the strength of the law - she spent her career in some of the most complex corners of the world, reading and writing constitutions, trying to create order where it did not exist. But, as she sat alone in a shaking metal trailer in Baghdad after her camp was hit with a 240mm rocket, she admitted to herself what she'd been denying for years: stable order was an illusion, and law - while intended to help - often only made things worse. Drawing on her own research, teaching and fieldwork in democratic theory and practice over the past three decades, Skach exposes both the seriousness of the challenges to democracy we face, and a solution to them that is profoundly within our reach. She proposes six ideas across six areas we should care about most - leadership, education, social diversity, the environment, the physical community and our fundamental rights - and shows us how we can take steps in each of these areas to be better, truer citizens.Skach argues that now - as we bear witness to failing governments, the corruption of constitutions and the continual decline of democracy across the world - is the time to move outside of our inadequate box of laws and rules and leadership, and instead make democracy work a different way. One citizen at a time.