Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy

Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy PDF Author: John Higley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742553613
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This compelling and convincing study, the capstone of decades of research, argues that political regimes are created and sustained by elites. Liberal democracies are no exception; they depend, above all, on the formation and persistence of consensually united elites. John Higley and Michael Burton explore the circumstances and ways in which such elites have formed in the modern world. They identify pressures that may cause a basic change in the structure and functioning of elites in established liberal democracies, and they ask if the elites cluster around George W. Bush are a harbinger of this change. The authors' powerful and important argument reframes our thinking about liberal democracy and questions optimistic assumptions about the prospects for its spread in the twenty-first century.

Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy

Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy PDF Author: John Higley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742553613
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book Here

Book Description
This compelling and convincing study, the capstone of decades of research, argues that political regimes are created and sustained by elites. Liberal democracies are no exception; they depend, above all, on the formation and persistence of consensually united elites. John Higley and Michael Burton explore the circumstances and ways in which such elites have formed in the modern world. They identify pressures that may cause a basic change in the structure and functioning of elites in established liberal democracies, and they ask if the elites cluster around George W. Bush are a harbinger of this change. The authors' powerful and important argument reframes our thinking about liberal democracy and questions optimistic assumptions about the prospects for its spread in the twenty-first century.

Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy

Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy PDF Author: John Higley
Publisher: Elite Transformations
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
This compelling and convincing study represents the culmination of the authors' several decades of research on the pivotal role played by elites in the success or failure of political regimes. Revising the classical theory of elites and politics, John Higley and Michael Burton distinguish basic types of elites and associated political regimes. They canvas political change during the modern historical and contemporary periods to identify circumstances and ways in which the sine qua non of liberal democracy, a consensually united elite, has formed and persisted. The book considers an impressive body of cases, examining how consensually united elites have fostered forty-five liberal democracies and how disunited or ideologically united elites have thus far prevented liberal democracy in more than one hundred other countries. The authors argue that obstacles to the emergence of elites propitious for liberal democracy are more formidable than democratization enthusiasts recognize. They assess prospects for the transformation of disunited and ideologically united elites where they now exist, ask whether current challenges to Western liberal democracies will undermine their consensually united elites, and explore what the rise of the distinctive elite clustered around George W. Bush may portend for America's liberal democracy. The authors' powerful and important argument reframes our thinking about liberal democracy and questions optimistic assumptions about the prospects for its spread in the twenty-first century.

Elites, Non-Elites, and Political Realism

Elites, Non-Elites, and Political Realism PDF Author: John Higley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 153816289X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
This provocative and groundbreaking book challenges accepted wisdom about the role of elites in both maintaining and undermining democracy in an increasingly authoritarian world. John Higley traces patterns of elite political behavior and the political orientations of non-elite populations throughout modern history to show what is and is not possible in contemporary politics. He situates these patterns and orientations in a range of regimes, showing how they have played out in revolutions, populist nationalism, Arab Spring failures to democratize, the conflation of ultimate and instrumental values in today’s liberal democracies, and American political thinkers’ misguided assumption that non-elites are the principal determinants of politics. Critiquing the optimistic outlooks prevalent among educated Westerners, Higley considers them out of touch with reality because of spreading employment insecurity, demoralization, and millennial pursuits in their societies. Attacks by domestic and foreign terrorists, effects of climate change, mass migrations from countries outside the West, and disease pandemics exacerbate insecurity and further highlight the flaws in the belief that democracy can thrive and spread worldwide. Higley concludes that these threats to the well-being of Western societies are here to stay. They leave elites with no realistic alternative to a holding operation until at least mid-century that husbands the power and political practices of Western societies. Drawing on decades of research, Higley’s analysis is historically and comparatively informed, bold, and in some places dark—and will be sure to foster debate.

Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy

Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy PDF Author: Michael Albertus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110819642X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
This book argues that - in terms of institutional design, the allocation of power and privilege, and the lived experiences of citizens - democracy often does not restart the political game after displacing authoritarianism. Democratic institutions are frequently designed by the outgoing authoritarian regime to shield incumbent elites from the rule of law and give them an unfair advantage over politics and the economy after democratization. Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy systematically documents and analyzes the constitutional tools that outgoing authoritarian elites use to accomplish these ends, such as electoral system design, legislative appointments, federalism, legal immunities, constitutional tribunal design, and supermajority thresholds for change. The study provides wide-ranging evidence for these claims using data that spans the globe and dates from 1800 to the present. Albertus and Menaldo also conduct detailed case studies of Chile and Sweden. In doing so, they explain why some democracies successfully overhaul their elite-biased constitutions for more egalitarian social contracts.

Liberal Democracy

Liberal Democracy PDF Author: Max Meyer
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030474089
Category : Comparative government
Languages : en
Pages : 77

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Book Description
This open access book aims to show which factors have been decisive in the rise of successful countries. Never before have so many people been so well off. However, prosperity is not a law of nature; it has to be worked for. A liberal economy stands at the forefront of this success - not as a political system, but as a set of economic rules promoting competition, which in turn leads to innovation, research and enormous productivity. Sustainable prosperity is built on a foundation of freedom, equal opportunity and a functioning government. This requires a stable democracy that cannot be defeated by an autocrat. Autocrats claim that "illiberalism" is more efficient, an assertion that justifies their own power. Although autocrats can efficiently guide the first steps out of poverty, once a certain level of prosperity has been achieved, people begin to demand a sense of well-being - freedom and codetermination. Only when this is possible will they feel comfortable, and progress will continue. Respect for human rights is crucial. The rules of the free market do not lean to either the right or left politically. Liberalism and the welfare state are not mutually exclusive. The "conflict" concerns the amount of government intervention. Should there be more or less? As a lawyer, entrepreneur, and board member with over 40 years of experience in this field of conflict, the author clearly describes the conditions necessary for a country to maintain its position at the top.

The People Vs. Democracy

The People Vs. Democracy PDF Author: Yascha Mounk
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674976827
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Uiteenzetting over de opkomst van het populisme en het gevaar daarvan voor de democratie.

Why Liberalism Failed

Why Liberalism Failed PDF Author: Patrick J. Deneen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300240023
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
"One of the most important political books of 2018."—Rod Dreher, American Conservative Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.

Inequality and Democratization

Inequality and Democratization PDF Author: Ben W. Ansell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316123286
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Research on the economic origins of democracy and dictatorship has shifted away from the impact of growth and turned toward the question of how different patterns of growth - equal or unequal - shape regime change. This book offers a new theory of the historical relationship between economic modernization and the emergence of democracy on a global scale, focusing on the effects of land and income inequality. Contrary to most mainstream arguments, Ben W. Ansell and David J. Samuels suggest that democracy is more likely to emerge when rising, yet politically disenfranchised, groups demand more influence because they have more to lose, rather than when threats of redistribution to elite interests are low.

Constrained Elitism and Contemporary Democratic Theory

Constrained Elitism and Contemporary Democratic Theory PDF Author: Timothy Kersey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317928288
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Today, examples of the public’s engagement with political issues through commercial and communicative mechanisms have become increasingly common. In February 2012, the Susan G. Komen Foundation reversed a decision to cease funding of cancer screening programs through Planned Parenthood amidst massive public disapproval. The same year, restaurant chain Chic-fil-A became embroiled in a massive public debate over statements its President made regarding same-sex marriage. What exactly is going on in such public engagement, and how does this relate to existing ideas regarding the public sphere and political participation? Is the public becoming increasingly vocal in its complaints? Or are new relationships between the public and economic and political leaders emerging? Timothy Kersey’s book asserts that the widespread utilization of internet communications technologies, especially social media applications, has brought forth a variety of new communicative behaviors and relationships within liberal polities. Through quick and seemingly chaotic streams of networked communication, the actions of these elites are subject to increasingly intense scrutiny and short-term pressure to ameliorate or at least address the concerns of segments of the population. By examining these new patterns of behavior among both elites and the general public, Kersey unearths the implications of these patterns for contemporary democratic theory, and argues that contemporary conceptualizations of "the public’" need to be modified to more accurately reflect practices of online communication and participation. By engaging with this topical issue, Kersey is able to closely examine the self-organization of both elite and non-elite segments of the population within the realm of networked communication, and the relations and interactions between these segments. His book combines perspectives from political theory and communication studies and so will be widely relevant across both disciplines.

Elites and People

Elites and People PDF Author: Fredrik Engelstad
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1838679154
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This volume contains an Open Access chapter. The present volume of Comparative Social Research offers a broad set of comparative studies of elites, stretching from the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt to women's political leadership in Brazil and Germany, via attainment of elite positions among minorities in France and the US.