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This is part two of a two-volume set.&BAD:quot;Democracy is, in part, a debate about what democracy is. With The Theory of Democracy Revisted, Sartori offers an overview of classical and contemporary issues. All students of politics will find his arguments provocative, whether or not they agree with his conclusions.&BAD:quot;&BAD:ndash; Jean Bethke Eishtain, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
List of contents
Part 2 The classical issues: what is democracy? definition, proof, and preference - are definitions arbitrary?, a criticism of conventionalism, words as experience carriers, the search for proof, a comparative evaluation; Greek democracy and modern democracy - homonymy, not homology, direct or polis democracy, individualism and freedom, old and new, the modern idea and ideal, a reversal of perspective; liberty and law - freedom and freedoms, political freedom, liberal freedom, the supremacy of law in Rousseau, autonomy - a criticism, the principle of diminishing consequences, from the rule of law to the rule of legislators; equality - a protest ideal, justice and sameness, predemocratic and democratic equalities, equal opportunities and equal circumstances, egalitarian criteria, treatments and outcomes, the maximization of equality, liberty and equality; liberism, liberalism, and democracy - overlaps, an unfortunate timing, property and possessive individualism, liberalism defined, liberal democracy, democracy within liberalism, democracy without liberalism; market, capitalism, planning, and technocracy - what is planning?, what is the market?, capitalism, individualism, collectivism, market socialism, democratic planning, democracy, power, and incompetence, the role of the expert, the government of science; another democracy? - the good society of Rousseau and Marx, democracy and the state in Marx and Lenin, popular democracy, the theory of democratic dictatorship, democracy and demophily, the war of words; the poverty of ideology - the exhaustion of ideals, inevitables and evitables, the witch-hunting of ideas, novitism and beyondism, epilogue.
About the author
Giovanni Sartori (1924-2017) was born in Florence, and was appointed Professor of Political Science at the University of Florence in 1963. He was a visiting Professor at Harvard and Yale Universities, and in 1976 succeeded Gabriel Almond as Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. In 1979 he was appointed Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, New York, where subsequently became Professor Emeritus.
Summary
Democracy is, in part, a debate about what democracy is. This title offers an overview of classical and contemporary issues.
