Democracy Theory

What would the world look like if America were to reduce its role as a global leader in order to focus all its energies on solving its problems at home? And is America really in decline? Robert Kagan, New York Times best-selling author and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, paints a vivid, alarming picture of what the world might look like if the United States were truly to let its influence wane.

How Free Speech Saved Democracy is a revealing reminder that First Amendment rights have often been curtailed in efforts to block progress, and that current measures to reduce hurtful language and to end hate speech could backfire on those who promote them.

These days it seems that nobody is satisfied with American democracy. Critics across the ideological spectrum warn that the country is heading toward catastrophe but also complain that nothing seems to change. At the same time, many have begun to wonder if the gulf between elites and ordinary people has turned democracy itself into a myth. The urge to defend the country’s foundations and to dismantle them coexist—often within the same people. How did we get here? Why does it feel like the country is both grinding to a halt and falling to pieces?

Beautiful Country Burn Again narrates a shocking year in American politics, moving from the early days of the Iowa Caucus to the crystalizing moments of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and culminating in the aftershocks of the weeks following election night. Along the way, Fountain probes deeply into history, illuminating the forces and watershed moments of the past that mirror and precipitated the present, from the hollowed-out notion of the American Dream, to Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy, to the cult of celebrity that gave rise to Donald Trump.

Over the last decade, Britain has been rocked by a series of political revolts. In trying to make sense of this remarkable churn and change, many commentators cling to very short-term and unconvincing explanations, pointing to social media, dark money, individual leaders, or the promises made to voters. But, as acclaimed political scientist Matthew Goodwin reveals in this strikingly original study, this turbulence has been a long time in the making—and it is set to continue for many years to come.

The 2015 winner of the Brown Democracy Medal, Joan C. Tronto, argues in Who Cares? that we need to rethink American democracy, as well as our own fundamental values and commitments, from a caring perspective. Asserting that Americans are facing a "caring deficit" - that there are simply too many demands on our time to care adequately for children, elderly people, and ourselves - she asks us to reconsider how we allocate care responsibilities.

A century ago, the idea of 'the economy' didn't exist. Now economics is the supreme ideology of our time, with its own rules and language. The trouble is most of us can't speak it. This is damaging democracy. Dangerous agendas are hidden inside mathematical wrappers; controversial policies are presented as 'proven' by the models of economic 'science'. Government is being turned over to a publicly unaccountable technocratic elite. The Econocracy reveals that economics is too important to be left to the economists

In 2008, Geoghegan - then an established labor lawyer and prolific writer - embarked on a campaign to represent Chicago's Fifth District in the US House, in a special election called when the sitting congressman, Rahm Emanuel, stepped down to serve as newly elected President Barack Obama's chief of staff. For 90 days leading up to the election, Geoghegan, a political neophyte at age 60, knocked on doors and shook hands at train stations and made fundraising calls.

In Losing the News, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex S. Jones offers a probing look at the epochal changes sweeping the media, changes which are eroding the core news that has been the essential food supply of our democracy. Losing the News depicts an unsettling situation in which the American birthright of fact-based, reported news is in danger. But it is also a call to arms to fight to keep the core of news intact.

In P=dt, Outline of a Theory of Power, the author develops the historical dynamics that link hegemonic, imperial powers with tolerance of diversity and dissent from power throughout history. This relationship is expressed in the formula P = d.t. Before and after periods of crisis in two different global systems, this is a zero-sum equilibrium: P - d.t = 0.

On December 4, 1865, members of the 39th United States Congress walked into the Capitol Building to begin their first session after the end of the Civil War. They understood their responsibility to put the nation back on the path established by the American Founding Fathers. Author Forrest A. Nabors shows that the ultimate goal of the Republican Party, the war, and Reconstruction was the same. This goal was to preserve and advance republicanism as the American founders understood it, against its natural, existential enemy: oligarchy.

In this sweeping and provocative work, political economist William Davies draws on a 400-year history of ideas to reframe our understanding of the contemporary world. He argues that global trends decades and even centuries in the making have reduced a world of logic and fact into one driven by emotions - particularly fear and anxiety. This has ushered in an age of "nervous states", both in our individual bodies and our body politic.

The chaotic events leading up to Mitt Romney's defeat in the 2012 election indicated how far the Republican Party had rocketed rightward away from the center of public opinion. Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government and force a U.S. debt default. Tea Party activists mounted primary challenges against Republican officeholders who appeared to exhibit too much pragmatism or independence. Moderation and compromise were dirty words in the Republican presidential debates. The GOP, it seemed, had suddenly become a party of ideological purity. Except this development is not new at all.

As white supremacy, ultra-nationalism, rabid misogyny, and anti-immigrant fervor coalesce, a new and uniquely American form of fascism looms. Could our current moment actually bring about the end of democracy in the United States? Are Americans willing to surrender their freedom and dignity, along with their ongoing struggle for equality, justice, and mutual respect in the face of the rising tide of political and ideological extremism?

Anchored by an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham, this concise collection of essays, letters, and poems from one of this country’s most eminent literary voices offers much-needed historical context for our current state of the nation - and hope for the future of our society.

The United States of America has been the most powerful country in the world for more than 70 years, but recently the US National Security Strategy declared that the return of great power competition with Russia and China is the greatest threat to US national security. Further, many analysts predict that America's autocratic rivals will have at least some success in disrupting - and, in the longer term, possibly even displacing - US global leadership. Brilliant and engagingly written, The Return of Great Power Rivalry argues that this conventional wisdom is wrong.

In the chilling aftermath of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, something unprecedented and deeply disturbing emerged. What appeared as a straightforward electoral victory soon unraveled into a web of statistical anomalies, technological vulnerabilities, and hidden manipulations that challenge the very foundation of democracy itself. "There's Something Wrong with 2024: How Trump and Musk Stole an Election" meticulously investigates alarming patterns discovered in the voting data across key swing states—Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona—where vote shares rose with impossible...

Ancient Greece first coined the concept of democracy, yet almost every major ancient Greek thinker - from Plato and Aristotle onward - was ambivalent toward or even hostile to democracy in any form. The explanation for this is quite simple: The elite perceived majority power as tantamount to a dictatorship of the proletariat. In ancient Greece, there can be traced not only the rudiments of modern democratic society but the entire Western tradition of antidemocratic thought.

Far-right groups are now the most regular perpetrators of terrorist activity in the UK according to Prevent and are more visible than ever: on the streets, in the corridors of power. But how much do we really know about the myriad shadowy political collectives that have insinuated themselves into every stratum of British society? Harry Shukman, a researcher with HOPE not hate, set out to explore this secretive world that seemingly hides from us in plain sight.

Written by fifty-five of the richest white men, and signed by only thirty-nine of them, the US constitution is the sacred text of American nationalism. Popular perceptions of it are mired in idolatry, myth, and misinformation—many Americans have opinions on the constitution but have little idea what it says. This book examines the constitution for what it is—a rule book for elites to protect capitalism from democracy.