The Death of Democracy

by Benjamin Carter Hett

Author	: Benjamin Carter Hett
Publisher	: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages	: 304
Release	: 2018-04-03
Genre	: History
ISBN	: 1250162513

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A riveting account of how the Nazi Party came to power and how the failures of the Weimar Republic and the shortsightedness of German politicians allowed it to happen. Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In The Death of Democracy, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time. To say that Hitler was elected is too simple. He would never have come to power if Germany’s leading politicians had not responded to a spate of populist insurgencies by trying to co-opt him, a strategy that backed them into a corner from which the only way out was to bring the Nazis in. Hett lays bare the misguided confidence of conservative politicians who believed that Hitler and his followers would willingly support them, not recognizing that their efforts to use the Nazis actually played into Hitler’s hands. They had willingly given him the tools to turn Germany into a vicious dictatorship. Benjamin Carter Hett is a leading scholar of twentieth-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of these feckless politicians show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it. He offers a powerful lesson for today, when democracy once again finds itself embattled and the siren song of strongmen sounds ever louder.

The Life and Death of Democracy

by John Keane

Author	: John Keane
Publisher	: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages	: 717
Release	: 2009-06-01
Genre	: History
ISBN	: 1847377602

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John Keane's The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: can we really be sure that democracy had its origins in ancient Greece? How did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling that a bad moon is rising over all the world's democracies? Do they indeed have a future? Or is perhaps democracy fated to melt away, along with our polar ice caps? The work of one of Britain's leading political writers, this is no mere antiquarian history. Stylishly written, this superb book confronts its readers with an entirely fresh and irreverent look at the past, present and future of democracy. It unearths the beginnings of such precious institutions and ideals as government by public assembly, votes for women, the secret ballot, trial by jury and press freedom. It tracks the changing, hotly disputed meanings of democracy and describes quite a few of the extraordinary characters, many of them long forgotten, who dedicated their lives to building or defending democracy. And it explains why democracy is still potentially the best form of government on earth -- and why democracies everywhere are sleepwalking their way into deep trouble.

Democracy and the Death of Shame

by Jill Locke

Author	: Jill Locke
Publisher	: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages	: 217
Release	: 2016-04
Genre	: History
ISBN	: 1107063191

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Is shame dead? With personal information made so widely available, an eroding public/private distinction, and a therapeutic turn in public discourse, many seem to think so. People across the political spectrum have criticized these developments and sought to resurrect shame in order to protect privacy and invigorate democratic politics. Democracy and the Death of Shame reads the fear that 'shame is dead' as an expression of anxiety about the social disturbance endemic to democratic politics. Far from an essential supplement to democracy, the recurring call to 'bring back shame' and other civilizing mores is a disciplinary reaction to the work of democratic citizens who extend the meaning of political equality into social realms. Rereadings from the ancient Cynics to the mid-twentieth century challenge the view that shame is dead and show how shame, as a politically charged idea, is disavowed, invoked, and negotiated in moments of democratic struggle.

The Death of Social Democracy

by Ashley Lavelle

Author	: Ashley Lavelle
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 234
Release	: 2016-03-09
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1317036379

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Whereas many writers and scholars interested in the field of social democracy have focused on factors such as the role of economic globalization and electoral pressures, Ashley Lavelle explores the importance of the collapse of the post-war economic boom and lower growth rates since then. He examines how these pressures have led social democrats to embrace neo-liberal policies and become threatened by minor parties and independent politicians. Providing an original argument about the decline of social democracy, the author investigates how its decline has increased the popularity of minor parties and independents, along with the reasons for social democratic membership and electoral decline. This is an important book for scholars of social democracy and the broader themes of world politics, political parties, social movements and globalization.

How Democracies Die

by Steven Levitsky

Author	: Steven Levitsky
Publisher	: Crown
Total Pages	: 321
Release	: 2019-01-08
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1524762946

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Time • Foreign Affairs • WBUR • Paste Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved. Praise for How Democracies Die “What we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.”—The Washington Post “Where Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.”—Ezra Klein, Vox “If you only read one book for the rest of the year, read How Democracies Die. . . .This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history. . . . The best commentary on our politics, no contest.”—Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter) “A smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.”—Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Burning the Reichstag

by Benjamin Carter Hett

Author	: Benjamin Carter Hett
Publisher	: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages	: 422
Release	: 2014-02
Genre	: History
ISBN	: 0199322325

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A dramatic new account of the Reichstag fire and the origins of the Nazi rise to power

The Nazi Menace

by Benjamin Carter Hett

Author	: Benjamin Carter Hett
Publisher	: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages	: 296
Release	: 2020-08-04
Genre	: History
ISBN	: 1250205247

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A panoramic narrative of the years leading up to the Second World War—a tale of democratic crisis, racial conflict, and a belated recognition of evil, with profound resonance for our own time. Berlin, November 1937. Adolf Hitler meets with his military commanders to impress upon them the urgent necessity for a war of aggression in eastern Europe. Some generals are unnerved by the Führer’s grandiose plan, but these dissenters are silenced one by one, setting in motion events that will culminate in the most calamitous war in history. Benjamin Carter Hett takes us behind the scenes in Berlin, London, Moscow, and Washington, revealing the unsettled politics within each country in the wake of the German dictator’s growing provocations. He reveals the fitful path by which anti-Nazi forces inside and outside Germany came to understand Hitler’s true menace to European civilization and learned to oppose him, painting a sweeping portrait of governments under siege, as larger-than-life figures struggled to turn events to their advantage. As in The Death of Democracy, his acclaimed history of the fall of the Weimar Republic, Hett draws on original sources and newly released documents to show how these long-ago conflicts have unexpected resonances in our own time. To read The Nazi Menace is to see past and present in a new and unnerving light.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

by Matt Qvortrup

Author	: Matt Qvortrup
Publisher	: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages	: 259
Release	: 2021-06-21
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 3110713438

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Putting the current crisis of democracy into historical perspective, Death by a Thousand Cuts chronicles how would-be despots, dictators, and outright tyrants have finessed the techniques of killing democracies earlier in history, in the 20th Century, and how today’s autocrats increasingly continue to do so in the 21st. It shows how autocratic government becomes a kleptocracy, sustained only to enrich the ruler and his immediate family. But the book also addresses the problems of being a dictator and considers if dictatorships are successful in delivering public policies, and finally, how autocracies break down. We tend to think of democratic breakdowns as dramatic events, such as General Pinochet’s violent coup in Chile, or Generalissimo Franco’s overthrow of the Spanish Republic. But this is not how democracies tend to die – only five percent of democracies end like this. Most often, popular government is brought down gradually; almost imperceptibly. Based in part on Professor Qvortrup’s BBC Programme Death by a Thousand Cuts (Radio-4, 2019), the book shows how complacency is the greatest danger for the survival of government by the people. Recently democratically elected politicians have used crises as a pretext for dismantling democracy. They follow a pattern we have seen in all democracies since the dawn of civilisation. The methods used by Octavian in the dying days of the Roman Republic were almost identical to those used by Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán in 2020. And, sadly, there are no signs that the current malaise will go away. Death by a Thousand Cuts adds substance to a much-discussed topic: the threat to democracy. It provides evidence and historical context like no other book on the market. Written in an accessible style with vignettes as well as new empirical data, the books promises to be the defining book on the topic. This book will help readers who are concerned about the longevity of democracy understand when and why democracy is in danger of collapsing, and alert them to the warning signs of its demise.

How Democracy Ends

by David Runciman

Author	: David Runciman
Publisher	: Basic Books
Total Pages	: 205
Release	: 2018-06-05
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1541616790

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How will democracy end? And what will replace it? A preeminent political scientist examines the past, present, and future of an endangered political philosophy Since the end of World War II, democracy's sweep across the globe seemed inexorable. Yet today, it seems radically imperiled, even in some of the world's most stable democracies. How bad could things get? In How Democracy Ends, David Runciman argues that we are trapped in outdated twentieth-century ideas of democratic failure. By fixating on coups and violence, we are focusing on the wrong threats. Our societies are too affluent, too elderly, and too networked to fall apart as they did in the past. We need new ways of thinking the unthinkable -- a twenty-first-century vision of the end of democracy, and whether its collapse might allow us to move forward to something better. A provocative book by a major political philosopher, How Democracy Ends asks the most trenchant questions that underlie the disturbing patterns of our contemporary political life.