It took me just three days to read Cas Mudde’s Far Right Today. It is a short book which numbers just 180 pages before the notes begin. Yet it feels longer but not in a bad way. It feels as though Mudde has offered an extended seminar on far right politics. He breaks down the... Continue Reading →
I grew up outside the two-party system in the United States. As early as sixth grade, I rejected both political parties so I could support a third-party presidential candidate. Like most children, I followed my father’s direction who struggled with his own political identification. But for over a decade a large part of my identity... Continue Reading →
Larry Diamond is the intellectual conscience of democracy scholarship. Perhaps this assessment is unfair. He is among the great intellectual minds among scholars of democracy living today. Yet his legacy is not necessarily theoretical but rather moral. He has challenged leaders around the world to live up to the standards of liberal democracy. Writing in... Continue Reading →
Francis Fukuyama established his reputation with the publication The End of History and the Last Man, but it is his two-volume work on political order which is his masterpiece. It is this work which realizes ambitions which were implied but never attempted in his earlier writings. And both its achievements and flaws originate from his... Continue Reading →
Dahl’s majoritarianism has never made sense to me. I get the feeling Dahl has different ideas he believes relate to democracy. But he never completely ties them together. There are so many loose ends which he dances around. It’s a beautiful chaos because he is a genius who is completely honest with his intellectual curiosity... Continue Reading →
The traditional definition of democracy emphasizes the principle of majority rule and the institution of elections. This is where the genesis of the “tyranny of the majority” claim emerges. Typically, political theorists have required the marriage of liberalism and democracy to establish limitations on majority rule. This approach assumes there is a conflict between traditional... Continue Reading →
