Democracy Paradox

American exceptionalism was never simply about the culture of the American people. It places a fundamental focus on American institutions and a faith in the American political process. Indeed, Tocqueville recognized in the nineteenth century the importance of the political system in shaping a peculiar and unique American culture. It is not culture which defines…

There is no more important work in comparative politics in the last ten years than Competitive Authoritarianism. Its ideas completely disrupted conceptual expectations about democracy. Some of the intellectual currents existed before its publication. Indeed, Levitsky and Way had published an article which outlined their ideas as early as 2002 in the Journal of Democracy.…

Schumpeter never intended to offer a landmark definition of democracy. It was an accident of fortune. In the preface to the first edition he admits, “The problem of democracy forced its way into the place it now occupies in this volume because it proved impossible to state my views on the relation between the socialist…

It is impossible to study the subject of democracy without coming across Huntington’s Third Wave. It is a landmark study of democratization. Moreover, it has a scholarly thoroughness which is rarely matched. Every author has a distinctive style. Dahl has an awkward optimism. Fukuyama has a teacher’s approach where he tries to bring complex subjects…

Let me begin with an introduction of Duncan McCargo. It is easy to simply describe him as a scholar of Thai politics. But this description leaves out so much. In some ways he is an ethnographer who prides himself on field work where he examines the politics, institutions and reactions in a direct and personal…

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA The end of the Cold War marked the clear end of a political era. As the Second World War ended, it became evident there was a tension between the American and Soviet world views. The collapse of the Soviet Union represented a clear victory for the American perspective. Democracy and capitalism became…

Legal scholars have written some of the best scholarship on democracy in recent years. Rosalind Dixon, Tom Ginsburg and David Landau are among the most creative and insightful minds among scholars of democratic governance. Their articles are not limited to American jurisprudence but analyze the role of the courts within different countries where legal traditions…

EVERETT, Wash. (Sept. 14, 2012) Newly-pinned chief petty officers salute during a chief petty officer pinning ceremony in the Grand Vista Ballroom at Naval Station Everett. The Naval Station welcomed 24 newly pinned Sailors to the rank of chief petty officer during the ceremony. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jeffry Willadsen/Released)…

There was a dark side to the democracy of ancient Athens. The sophists were not simply philosophers but also the educators of their time. They exploited the dynamics of the open assembly to teach an empty form of rhetoric without the need for substance as the foundation for their arguments. Indeed, its students learned how…

Theorists largely agree there is a strong connection between politics and economics. The economics of inequality have long drawn similarities to the democratic idea of political equality. Robert Dahl believed an emphasis on economic democracy was necessary to move beyond polyarchy. C. B. MacPherson also found the economic inequalities found in Western Democracies inconsistent with…