Democracy without Politics / Steven Bilakovics.
Bilakovics, Steven, author.
2012
JC421 .B52 2012eb
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Title Democracy without Politics / Steven Bilakovics.
Author Bilakovics, Steven, author.
ISBN 9780674062931
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674062931
Published Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2012]
Copyright ©2012
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource (312 p.)
Other Standard Identifiers 10.4159/harvard.9780674062931 doi
Call Number JC421 .B52 2012eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 321.8
Summary In Western democracies today, politics and politicians are held in contempt by the majority of citizens. Steven Bilakovics argues that this disdain of politics follows neither from the discontents of our liberal political system nor from the preoccupations of a consumer society. Rather, extending Tocqueville's analysis of the modern democratic way of life, he traces the sources of political cynicism to democracy itself. Democratic society's defining openness-its promise of transcendent freedom and unlimited power-renders the everyday politics of argument and persuasion absurd by comparison. Persuasion is devalued relative to the norms of free-market competition and patriotic community, assertions of self-interest and self-expression take the place of arguing together, and political life is diminished by the absence of mediating talk. Bilakovics identifies this trend across the political landscape-in the clashing authenticities of the ";culture war,"; the perennial pursuit of the political outsider to set things right again, the call for a postpartisan politics, rising demands on government alongside falling expectations of what government can do, and in a political rhetoric that is at once petty and hyperbolic. To reform democratic politics and ameliorate its pathologies, Bilakovics calls on us to overcome our anti-political prejudice and rethink robust democracy as the citizen's practice of persuading and being persuaded in turn.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)
In E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2012
E-BOOK PACKAGE HISTORY; POLITICAL SCIENCE, SOCIOLOGY 2012
E-BOOK PAKET GESCHICHTE, POLITIKWISS., SOZIOLOGIE 2012
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
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Frontmatter
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. "More than Kings yet Less than Men"
Chapter 2. Civilization without the Discontents
Chapter 3. The Regime of Revolution
Chapter 4. Political Phoenix
Conclusion
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

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