Empfehlungen basierend auf "For a Left Populism"

How does a democracy die?What can we do to save our own?What lessons does history teach us?In the twenty-first century democracy is threatened like never before.Drawing insightful lessons from across history - from Pinochet's murderous Chilean regime to Erdogan's quiet dismantling in Turkey - Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt explain why democracies fail, how leaders like Trump subvert them today and what each of us can do to protect our democratic rights.'Anyone who is concerned about the future of democracy should read this brisk, accessible book. Anyone who is not concerned should definitely read it' Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail'A must-read' Andrew Marr, Sunday Times'Provocative, timely. One of my favourite reads this year' Elif Shafak, author of The Bastard of Istanbul'A lucid and essential guide to what can happen' Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

Trump. Brexit. The alt-right. It’s increasingly apparent that old political notions—believed to be consigned to the dustbin of history—are now resurrected. The neonationalist, anti-globalization, and anti-establishment attitude engulfing the United States and United Kingdom hints suspiciously at a yearning for national sovereignty. Reclaiming the State offers an urgent and prescient political analysis and economic program for the Left who are strategizing for these uncertain times.Many of our assumptions—about ideology, democracy, trade, and globalization—are being thrown into doubt, deposed by populism, nationalism, and racism. In response to these challenging times, economist Bill Mitchell and political theorist Thomas Fazi propose a reconceptualization of the sovereign state as a vehicle for change. They offer a progressive view of sovereignty based not on the demonization of the other, but as a way to bring the economy back under democratic control. With nationalism gaining support across the United States with each passing week, Reclaiaming the State provides innovative ideas to mobilize and reenergize a tired, divided Left.

Two Harvard professors explain the dangerous world we face todayDemocracies can die with a coup d'état - or they can die slowly. This happens most deceptively when in piecemeal fashion, with the election of an authoritarian leader, the abuse of governmental power and the complete repression of opposition. All three steps are being taken around the world - not least with the election of Donald Trump - and we must all understand how we can stop them.In How Democracies Die, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt draw insightful lessons from across history - from the rule of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile to the quiet undermining of Turkey's constitutional system by President Recip Erdogan - to shine a light on regime breakdown across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Notably they point to the dangers of an authoritarian leader faced with a major crisis.Based on years of research, they present a deep understanding of how and why democracies die; an alarming analysis of how democracy is being subverted today in the US and beyond; and a guide for maintaining and repairing a threatened democracy, for governments, political parties and individuals.History doesn't repeat itself. But we can protect our democracy by learning its lessons, before it's too late.

A contrarian yet highly engaging account of the spread of illiberal and anti-democratic sentiment throughout our culture that places responsibility on the citizens themselves.Over the past three decades, citizens of democracies who claim to value freedom, tolerance, and the rule of law have increasingly embraced illiberal politicians and platforms. Democracy is in trouble--but who is really to blame?In Our Own Worst Enemy, Tom Nichols challenges the current depictions of the rise of illiberal and anti-democratic movements in the United States and elsewhere as the result of the deprivations of globalization or the malign decisions of elites. Rather, he places the blame for the rise of illiberalism on the people themselves. Nichols traces the illiberalism of the 21st century to the growth of unchecked narcissism, rising standards of living, global peace, and a resistance to change. Ordinary citizens, laden with grievances, have joined forces with political entrepreneurs who thrive on the creation of rage rather than on the encouragement of civic virtue and democratic cooperation. While it will be difficult, Nichols argues that we need to defend democracy by resurrecting the virtues of altruism, compromise, stoicism, and cooperation--and by recognizing how good we've actually had it in the modern world.Trenchant, contrarian, and highly engaging, Our Own Worst Enemy reframes the debate about how democracies have ended up in this dire state of affairs and what to do about it.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A call to reform our antiquated political institutions before it’s too late—from the authors of How Democracies Die“[Levitsky and Ziblatt] write with terrifying clarity about how the forces of the right have co-opted the enshrined rules to exert their tyranny.”—The Washington PostONE OF THE CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS’ TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A NEWSWEEK BEST BOOK OF THE YEARAmerica is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is democracy under assault here, and not in other wealthy, diversifying nations? And what can we do to save it?With the clarity and brilliance that made their first book, How Democracies Die, a global bestseller, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy. They then show how our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within: It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind.In this revelatory book, Levitsky and Ziblatt issue an urgent call to reform our politics. It’s a daunting task, but we have remade our country before—most notably, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era. And now we are at a crossroads: America will either become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy at all.

Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. Now with a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges, Democracy Incorporated remains an essential work for understanding the state of democracy in America.

Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"?Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today’s politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy’s best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level.Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America’s political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come.

'This is essential' Margaret Atwood on Twitter 'She's one of the most acute and perceptive analysts of the furtive growth of fascism. Everyone should know about this' Philip Pullman 'Vibrates with outrage' The Times 'It couldn't happen here' Ece Temelkuran heard reasonable people in Britain say it the night of the Brexit vote. She heard reasonable people in America say it the night Trump's election was soundtracked by chants of 'Build that wall.' She heard reasonable people in Turkey say it as Erdo an rigged elections, rebuilt the economy around cronyism, and labelled his opposition as terrorists. How to Lose a Country is an impassioned plea, a warning to the world that populism and nationalism don't march fully-formed into government; they creep. Award winning author and journalist Ece Temelkuran, identifies the early-warning signs of this phenomenon, sprouting up across the world from Eastern Europe to South America, in order to define a global pattern, and arm the reader with the tools to root it out. Proposing alternative, global answers to the pressing - and too often paralysing - poltical questions of our time, Temelkuran explores the insidious idea of 'real people', the infantilisation of language and debate, the way laughter can prove a false friend, and the dangers of underestimating one's opponent. She weaves memoir, history and clear-sighted argument into an urgent and eloquent defence of democracy. No longer can the reasonable comfort themselves with 'it couldn't happen here.' It is happening. And soon it may be too late.

In The End of the Republican Era, Theodore J. Lowi predicts not only a collapse of the Republican coalition but also the potential collapse of the United States’ republican experiment at large. Professing that the ideologies of dominant political coalitions contain the seeds of their own destruction, Lowi suggests that the efforts of a new conservative Right to enforce a national, religion-based morality has brought about the demise of the Republican era. A new, in-depth afterword by Lowi brings the text up to date with a discussion of political events since the book’s original publication. Noting the appearance of the new Conservative coalition, whose ideology runs counter to that of the traditional Republican party, Lowi affirms that the Republican era did in fact come to an end during the 1990s, having morphed into a Conservative party.

The revolution that brought the African National Congress (ANC) to power in South Africa was fractured by internal conflict.  Migrant workers from rural Zululand rejected many of the egalitarian values and policies fundamental to the ANC’s liberal democratic platform and organized themselves in an attempt to sabotage the movement. This anti-democracy stance, which persists today as a direct critique of "freedom" in neoliberal South Africa, hinges on an idealized vision of the rural home and a hierarchical social order crafted in part by the technologies of colonial governance over the past century. In analyzing this conflict, Jason Hickel contributes to broad theoretical debates about liberalism and democratization in the postcolonial world. Democracy as Death interrogates the Western ideals of individual freedom and agency from the perspective of those who oppose such ideals, and questions the assumptions underpinning theories of anti-liberal movements. The book argues that both democracy and the political science that attempts to explain resistance to it presuppose a model of personhood native to Western capitalism, which may not operate cross-culturally.