The meaning of democracy and the vulnerability of democracies : a response to Tocqueville's challenge / Vincent Ostrom.
Ostrom, Vincent, 1919-2012.
1997
JC423 .O8 1997 (Mapit)
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Title The meaning of democracy and the vulnerability of democracies : a response to Tocqueville's challenge / Vincent Ostrom.
Author Ostrom, Vincent, 1919-2012.
ISBN 0472107976 (cloth ; acid-free paper)
9780472107971 (cloth ; acid-free paper)
0472084569 (pbk. ; acid-free paper)
9780472084562 (pbk. ; acid-free paper)
Imprint Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, ©1997.
Language English
Description [xiii], 329 pages ; 24 cm
Call Number JC423 .O8 1997
Summary We struggle in the modern age to preserve individual freedoms and social self-government in the face of large and powerful governments that lay claim to the symbols and language of democracy, according to Vincent Ostrom. Arguing that democratic systems are characterized by self-governing--not state- governed--societies, Ostrom contends that the nature and strength of individual relationships and self-organizing behavior are critical to the creation and survival of a democratic political system. Ostrom begins with a basic contradiction identified by Alexis de Tocqueville. De Tocqueville suggested that if citizens acted on the basis of their natural inclinations they would expect government to provide for them and take care of their needs. Yet these conditions contradict what it means to be self-governing. Ostrom explores the social and cultural context necessary for a democratic system to flourish emphasizing the important role of ideas and the use of language in defining and understanding political life. Discussing differences in the ideas about social organization among various cultural and intellectual traditions, he considers the difficulties encountered over time in building democratic societies in America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. He outlines lessons from these experiences for the efforts to build democracy in the developing world and the countries emerging from communism. Based on a lifetime of thinking about the social conditions necessary to support a democracy, this book makes a significant contribution to the recent discussion about civil society and the fragility of our formal and informal social institutions and will be of interest to social scientists, historians and all readers concerned with the state of democracy in the modern world.-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references (pages 303-313) and index.
Record Appears in On-Campus Resources > Books
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Ch. 1. Are Democratic Societies Viable?
Ch. 2. Conceptions of Democracy and the Language of Political Inquiry
Ch. 3. Newspeak and Doublethink: The Delusion of Ideologies
Ch. 4. Epistemic Choice and Public Choice
Ch. 5. The Human Condition: Life, Learning, Language, Knowledge, Culture, and the Problem of Order
Ch. 6. An Institutional Analysis of the Place of Languages in the Political Economy of Life
Ch. 7. The Ontological Foundations of Human Understanding
Ch. 8. Artisanship-Artifact Relationships
Ch. 9. Comparing African and European Experience
Ch. 10. East and West
Ch. 11. Toward a Science of Citizenship in Democratic Systems of Order.

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