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Democracy Disfigured : Opinion, Truth, and the People
Urbinati, Nadia, 1955-Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]In Democracy Disfigured, Nadia Urbinati diagnoses the ills that beset the body politic in an age of hyper-partisanship and media monopolies and offers a spirited defense of the messy compromises and contentious outcomes that define democracy. Urbinati identifies three types of democratic disfiguration: the unpolitical, the populist, and the plebiscitarian. Each undermines a crucial division that a well-functioning democracy must preserve: the wall separating the free forum of public opinion from governmental institutions that enact the will of the people. Unpolitical democracy delegitimizes political opinion in favor of expertise. Populist democracy radically polarizes the public forum in which opinion is debated. And plebiscitary democracy overvalues the aesthetic and nonrational aspects of opinion. For Urbinati, democracy entails a permanent struggle to make visible the issues that citizens deem central to their lives. Opinion is thus a form of action as important as the mechanisms that organize votes and mobilize decisions. Urbinati focuses less on the overt enemies of democracy than on those who pose as its friends: technocrats wedded to procedure, demagogues who make glib appeals to "the people, " and media operatives who, given their preference, would turn governance into a spectator sport and citizens into fans of opposing teamsNadia Urbinati diagnoses the ills besetting the body politic and offers a defense of the messy compromises that define democracy. She focuses less on democracy's enemies than on those who pose as its friends: technocrats, partisan demagogues, and media operatives who turn governance into a spectator sport of winners, losers, and fans.
Online DeGruyter
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On Democracy
Dahl, Robert A., 1915-2014New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2021]Written by the preeminent democratic theorist of our time, this book explains the nature, value, and mechanics of democracy. In a new introduction to this Veritas edition, Ian Shapiro considers how Dahl would respond to the ongoing challenges democracy faces in the modern world. "Within the liberal democratic camp there is considerable controversy about exactly how to define democracy. Probably the most influential voice among contemporary political scientists in this debate has been that of Robert Dahl."-Marc Plattner, New York Times "An excellent introduction for novices, as well as a trusty handbook for experts and political science mavens."-Publishers Weekly
Online DeGruyter
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The Emerging Republican Majority : Updated Edition
Phillips, Kevin P.Updated edition with a New Preface - Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2014]One of the most important and controversial books in modern American politics, The Emerging Republican Majority (1969) explained how Richard Nixon won the White House in 1968-and why the Republicans would go on to dominate presidential politics for the next quarter century. Rightly or wrongly, the book has widely been seen as a blueprint for how Republicans, using the so-called Southern Strategy, could build a durable winning coalition in presidential elections. Certainly, Nixon's election marked the end of a "New Deal Democratic hegemony" and the beginning of a conservative realignment encompassing historically Democratic voters from the South and the Florida-to-California "Sun Belt, " in the book's enduring coinage. In accounting for that shift, Kevin Phillips showed how two decades and more of social and political changes had created enormous opportunities for a resurgent conservative Republican Party. For this new edition, Phillips has written a preface describing his view of the book, its reception, and how its analysis was borne out in subsequent elections.A work whose legacy and influence are still fiercely debated, The Emerging Republican Majority is essential reading for anyone interested in American politics or history
Online DeGruyter
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