Download or read book Anti Democratic Thought written by Erich Kofmel and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a historical and cross-cultural perspective it cannot be denied that most democracies failed. Only western democracies for a short while -- from the fall of Soviet communism to the rise of radical Islam -- believed themselves to be invincible. It has therefore become necessary to think about political alternatives once more and to study threats to democracy from within and without as well as common modes of failure of democracy across times and cultures. This book marks the start of a daring new debate and re-introduces anti-democratic thought and practice to the academic discourse and into the syllabus. It wishes to offer a serious discussion of anti-democratic thought, rather than an apology of democracy. 'I am the proponent of a new engagement with anti-democratic thought. This book outlines a positive agenda for the future.' -- Erich Kofmel (Editor). In a comprehensive overview, contributors to this volume discuss theoretical perspectives as well as examples of anti-democratic thought from ancient Greece to modern-day Israel and Bangladesh. A book that grew out of an international workshop on Anti-Democratic Thought organized by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS) and held at the 2007 annual conference "Workshops in Political Theory" in Manchester, England. 250 pages. PUBLISHER'S ANNOUNCEMENT Imprint Academic and Erich Kofmel I have been coming under pressure for several months on the matter of Imprint Academic’s publication of this book edited by Erich Kofmel. Initially this was from an anonymous group calling themselves “For and On Behalf of the Victims of Erich Kofmel”. They wished me to cancel publication of both Imprint Academic’s Kofmel volumes, on the grounds that money obtained by [alleged] fraud has been used in their development. My response was (a) I do not deal with anonymous bodies; (b) Erich Kofmel has not yet been found guilty of fraud; (c) I have a contractual obligation not just to the editor of these volumes but to his contributors. That remains essentially my position, although the problem of anonymity seems now to have gone. I have no wish for the reputation of Imprint Academic to be damaged by its association with Erich Kofmel, but neither do I intend to put myself in the wrong by breaking a legal publishing agreement on the basis of unproved allegations. I should perhaps add that Imprint Academic’s contract with Erich Kofmel has not to date involved any money changing hands in either direction. Anthony Freeman Managing Editor, Imprint Academic 17th April 2009

Download or read book Against the Masses written by Joseph V. Femia and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2001-08-02 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the almost universal assumption that democracy is a 'good thing', the goal of mankind, it is easy to forget that 'rule by the people' has been vehemently opposed by some of the most distinguished thinkers in the Western tradition. The author attempts to combat collective amnesia by systematically exploring and evaluating anti-democratic thought since the French Revolution. Using categories first introduced by A. O. Hirschman in The Rhetoric of Reaction, Femia examines the various arguments under the headings of 'perversity', 'futility', and 'jeopardy'. This classification scheme enables him to highlight the fatalism and pessimism of anti-democratic thinkers, their conviction that democratic reform would be either pointless or destructive. Femia shows how they failed to understand the adaptability of democracy, its ability to co-exist with the traditional and elitist values. But, controversially, he also argues that some of their predictions and observations have been confirmed by history.

Download or read book Against Democracy written by Jason Brennan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bracingly provocative challenge to one of our most cherished ideas and institutions Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. But Jason Brennan says they are all wrong. In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results—and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant and the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse—more irrational, biased, and mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government—epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable—may be better than democracy, and that it's time to experiment and find out. A challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable, Against Democracy is essential reading for scholars and students of politics across the disciplines. Featuring a new preface that situates the book within the current political climate and discusses other alternatives beyond epistocracy, Against Democracy is a challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable.

Download or read book Patterns of Anti Democratic Thought written by David Spitz and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1981-01-13 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did contemporary English and European notions of sovereignty, empire, law and state formation impact upon English methods of settlement and governance in the Americas? Using documents such as travel narratives, promotional literature, colonial charters, maps, diplomatic correspondence and state papers, Ken MacMillan offers a major new study of legal imperialism under Queen Elizabeth and the early Stuarts. He argues that the imperial centre had a legal and historical right and responsibility to supervise its colonial peripheries. By drawing on legal resources associated with Roman law and the law of nations, the crown and its agents ensured that English New World claims would gain recognition in the broader European community, thereby establishing legal foundations that would have an enduring impact on the British Empire. The book will appeal to scholars in imperial studies, English and American legal and constitutional history, foreign affairs and the history of international law.

Download or read book Democracy Without Shortcuts written by Cristina Lafont and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-01-12 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require citizens to blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics.

Download or read book Athens on Trial written by Jennifer Tolbert Roberts and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-23 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Classical Athenians were the first to articulate and implement the notion that ordinary citizens of no particular affluence or education could make responsible political decisions. For this reason, reactions to Athenian democracy have long provided a prime Rorschach test for political thought. Whether praising Athens's government as the legitimizing ancestor of modern democracies or condemning it as mob rule, commentators throughout history have revealed much about their own notions of politics and society. In this book, Jennifer Roberts charts responses to Athenian democracy from Athens itself through the twentieth century, exploring a debate that touches upon historiography, ethics, political science, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, gender studies, and educational theory.

Download or read book Democratic Theory Naturalized written by Walter Horn and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-10-05 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To some, the word populism suggests the tyranny of the mob; to others, it suggests a xenophobic nativism. It is often even considered conducive to (if not simply identical to) fascism. In Democratic Theory Naturalized: The Foundations of Distilled Populism, Walter Horn uses his theory of "CHOICE Voluntarism” to offer solutions to some of the most perplexing problems in democratic theory and distill populism to its core premise: giving people the power to govern themselves without any constraints imposed by those on the left or the right. Beginning with explanations of what it means to vote and what makes one society better off than another, Horn analyzes what makes for fair aggregation and appropriate, deliberative representation. Through his examination of the American government, Horn suggests solutions to contemporary problems such as gerrymandering, immigration control, and campaign finance, and offers answers to age-old questions like why dissenters should obey the majority and who should have the right to vote in various elections.

Download or read book Against Elections written by David Van Reybrouck and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A small book with great weight and urgency to it, this is both a history of democracy and a clarion call for change. "Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer," writes Van Reybrouck, regarded today as one of Europe's most astute thinkers. "If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens are longing for participation and how quickly that desire can tip over into frustration, then you realize we are up to our necks." Not so very long ago, the great battles of democracy were fought for the right to vote. Now, Van Reybrouck writes, "it's all about the right to speak, but in essence it's the same battle, the battle for political emancipation and for democratic participation. We must decolonize democracy. We must democratize democracy." As history, Van Reybrouck makes the compelling argument that modern democracy was designed as much to preserve the rights of the powerful and keep the masses in line, as to give the populace a voice. As change-agent, Against Elections makes the argument that there are forms of government, what he terms sortitive or deliberative democracy, that are beginning to be practiced around the world, and can be the remedy we seek. In Iceland, for example, deliberative democracy was used to write the new constitution. A group of people were chosen by lot, educated in the subject at hand, and then were able to decide what was best, arguably, far better than politicians would have. A fascinating, and workable idea has led to a timely book to remind us that our system of government is a flexible instrument, one that the people have the power to change.

Download or read book The Colonial American Origins of Modern Democratic Thought written by J. S. Maloy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-22 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first examination in almost forty years of political ideas in the seventeenth-century American colonies reaches some surprising conclusions about the history of democratic theory more generally. The origins of a distinctively modern kind of thinking about democracy can be located, not in revolutionary America and France in the later eighteenth century, but in the tiny New England colonies in the middle seventeenth. The key feature of this democratic rebirth was honoring not only the principle of popular sovereignty through regular elections but also the principle of accountability through non-electoral procedures for the auditing and impeachment of elected officers. By staking its institutional identity entirely on elections, modern democratic thought has misplaced the sense of robust popular control which originally animated it.

Download or read book Recent Anti democratic Ideas and Tendencies in American Politics written by Kathryn Dorothy Frederick and published by . This book was released on 1946 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Twilight of Democracy written by Anne Applebaum and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document ... is Applebaum's answer." —Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian explains, with electrifying clarity, why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward nationalism and authoritarianism. From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else. Elegantly written and urgently argued, Twilight of Democracy is a brilliant dissection of a world-shaking shift and a stirring glimpse of the road back to democratic values.

Download or read book The Death of Democracy written by Benjamin Carter Hett and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting account of how the Nazi Party came to power and how the failures of the Weimar Republic and the shortsightedness of German politicians allowed it to happen. Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In The Death of Democracy, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time. To say that Hitler was elected is too simple. He would never have come to power if Germany’s leading politicians had not responded to a spate of populist insurgencies by trying to co-opt him, a strategy that backed them into a corner from which the only way out was to bring the Nazis in. Hett lays bare the misguided confidence of conservative politicians who believed that Hitler and his followers would willingly support them, not recognizing that their efforts to use the Nazis actually played into Hitler’s hands. They had willingly given him the tools to turn Germany into a vicious dictatorship. Benjamin Carter Hett is a leading scholar of twentieth-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of these feckless politicians show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it. He offers a powerful lesson for today, when democracy once again finds itself embattled and the siren song of strongmen sounds ever louder.

Download or read book Democracy Under Siege written by Frank Furedi and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-30 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frank Furedi examines the frequent claim that democracy is a means to an end rather than an important value in and of itself. The prevalence of this sentiment in the current era is not surprising, given that the normative foundation for democracy is fragile, and there is little cultural valuation for this outlook. Until recently, virtually every serious commentator paid lip-service to democracy. However, in recent times the classical elitist disdain for democracy and for the moral and intellectual capacity of the electorate has acquired a powerful influence over public life. Democracy Under Siege outlines the long history of anti-democratic thought, explains why hostility to democracy has gained momentum in the current era, and offers a positive affirmation of the principle and the value of democracy.

Download or read book Democracy for Realists written by Christopher H. Achen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why our belief in government by the people is unrealistic—and what we can do about it Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics ranging from abortion politics and budget deficits to the Great Depression and shark attacks, to show that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steering the ship of state from the voting booth is fundamentally misguided. They demonstrate that voters—even those who are well informed and politically engaged—mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly. Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. Now with new analysis of the 2016 elections, Democracy for Realists provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government.

Download or read book The Anti Oligarchy Constitution written by Joseph Fishkin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold call to reclaim an American tradition that argues the Constitution imposes a duty on government to fight oligarchy and ensure broadly shared wealth. Oligarchy is a threat to the American republic. When too much economic and political power is concentrated in too few hands, we risk losing the Òrepublican form of governmentÓ the Constitution requires. Today, courts enforce the Constitution as if it has almost nothing to say about this threat. But as Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath show in this revolutionary retelling of constitutional history, a commitment to prevent oligarchy once stood at the center of a robust tradition in American political and constitutional thought. Fishkin and Forbath demonstrate that reformers, legislators, and even judges working in this Òdemocracy of opportunityÓ tradition understood that the Constitution imposes a duty on legislatures to thwart oligarchy and promote a broad distribution of wealth and political power. These ideas led Jacksonians to fight special economic privileges for the few, Populists to try to break up monopoly power, and Progressives to fight for the constitutional right to form a union. During Reconstruction, Radical Republicans argued in this tradition that racial equality required breaking up the oligarchy of slave power and distributing wealth and opportunity to former slaves and their descendants. President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Dealers built their politics around this tradition, winning the fight against the Òeconomic royalistsÓ and Òindustrial despots.Ó But today, as we enter a new Gilded Age, this tradition in progressive American economic and political thought lies dormant. The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution begins the work of recovering it and exploring its profound implications for our deeply unequal society and badly damaged democracy.

Download or read book Militant Democracy and Its Critics written by Anthoula Malkopoulou and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can defensive efforts that curtail rights of participation of antidemocratic movements be consistent with democratic values? In this collection of essays, scholars from across politics, philosophy and law address the unresolved practical and theoretical questions concerning democracy and extremism.

Download or read book Democracy written by Ernst Bernhard Schulz and published by Woodbury, N.Y. : Barron's Educational Series, Incorporated. This book was released on 1977 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: