Review by Choice Review
Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy that would sweep the globe, but the commitment to democracy throughout the world has declined dramatically in recent years. Extremism and authoritarian populism, as expressed by Donald Trump in the US, Frauke Petry in Germany, Marine Le Pen in France, Recep Erdogan in Turkey, and others in India, Hungary, Poland, Russia, the Philippines, and elsewhere, are now rampant. Mounk (Harvard) depicts the wilting of democracy as a product of forces such as stagnating living standards, fears of multiethnicity, and the power of technology and social media. He warns the threat should not be cavalierly dismissed; counteraction is imperative. The book is one of a number of other such warnings that include Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny (Tim Duggan Books, 2017) and Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018). Well researched and well written, the treatise is an important caveat and a manifesto for the actions necessary to protect democracy's future. The author outlines flaws within democratic societies that must be addressed, but the alternative to freedom is rising before the world's eyes. Highly recommended. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. --Joe P. Dunn, Converse College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
For decades, it was assumed that democracy, with its free and fair elections, and liberalism, with its broad protections for civil liberties and individual rights, went hand in hand. But today "we are seeing the rise of illiberal democracy, or democracy without rights, and undemocratic liberalism, or rights without democracy," Mounk writes. This has pitted far-right parties in Europe, which now appeal to a sizable chunk of the electorate while demonizing immigrants and minorities, against technocratic institutions like the European Union, which impinge on individual liberty in the name of collective solutions. Mounk's material is densely packed and he has a tendency to repeat himself, but his book provides important insights into the present political moment. He cites three reasons for the weakening of liberal democracy: the rise of social media, which is "empowering once-marginal movements and politicians" in ways good but often bad; an increase in economic inequality, which he calls "affluence without growth"; and a nativist backlash against an upsurge of immigration and ethnic diversity, which politicians like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen in France and Viktor Orbán in Hungary have exploited. "To save democracy," Mounk writes, "we need ... to unite citizens around a common conception of their nation; to give them real hope for their economic future; and to make them more resistant to the lies and the hate they encounter on social media each and every day." As his book shows, that's easier said than done.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 15, 2018]
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The populists are on a rampage, and democratic institutions are in the way. Who will prevail?There are times, writes Harvard government lecturer Mounk (The Age of Responsibility: Luck, Choice, and the Welfare State, 2017, etc.), when history seems to inch along, others when "everything changes all at once" and "a system of government that had seemed immutable looks as though it might come apart." We live in one of those latter periods, and the news from the front is troubling. As the author notes, only one-third of millennials believe that "it is extremely important to live in a democracy," and 1 in 6 Americans thinks that military rule is a good form of government. As a result, authoritarian populism has risen in America and elsewhere in the world, only a quarter-century after it seemed that with the fall of communism, liberal democracy would overtake the planet. Instead, "the primacy of the nation state has come roaring back." Mounk documents several strains of this illiberality, many rising from the "rebellion against pluralism" that has announced itself in the culture war and the campaign against immigration, legal or otherwise. Accompanying this is a species of "demographic anxiety" about rising numbers of people in North America and Europe who are not of North American or European background as well as an overall decline in living standards and access to communications whereby malcontents can spread their views easily. Against all this, Mounk proposes reasonable remediesor reasonable, one supposes, if one is not a political party operative, since, considering the Hillary Clinton defeat of 2016, he argues that "defenders of liberal democracy must demonstrate that they take the problems voters face seriously, and seek to effect real change." Optimistically, the author even finds hope that the Trump administration will, by its bad example, "help to inoculate the United States against illiberal democracy."Provocative reading: ammunition for pundits and food for thought for anyone with an interest in political trends. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
