How Democracy Ends

by David Runciman Narrated by David Runciman

Overview

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In How Democracy Ends, David Runciman argues that we are trapped in outdated twentieth-century ideas of democratic failure.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.

Editorial Reviews

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

As David Runciman narrates his work on the status of democracy, his voice is affable and calming, even when his words inspire the opposite response. Runciman considers our current political climate to be one in which we are still functioning as a working democracy that is withstanding the rise of autocratic rule. However, he argues, we would do well to acknowledge history. Listeners are given examples of political uprisings, including various forms of a coups d'état. Listeners are encouraged to consider the ability of technology to infiltrate the masses and what it means when democracy “works.” Runciman is a professor of politics and a podcast host; his skill in both these vocations is on full display in this absorbing, if disconcerting, audiobook. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

04/02/2018
Political philosopher Runciman (The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present) provides a meandering exploration of “the malaise of contemporary democracy” and identifies various possible means by which it might end. Runciman contends that observers who worry about the collapse of democratic institutions all too often focus on signs of democratic failure familiar from the last century: “backsliding” into “fascism, violence, and world war.” Rather, Runciman theorizes, democracy is going through a “midlife crisis,” and when the end comes, “we are likely to be surprised by the form it takes.” The book examines several potential democracy enders: coups, the lurking disasters of climate change or nuclear war, and technology or corporations running amok. It also considers potential replacements for democracy: pragmatic authoritarianism, epistocracy—the distribution of power based on knowledge—and submission to artificial intelligence. This work is thought-provoking about the defects of contemporary democratic politics, but the free-flowing and loose structure and Runciman’s avoidance of claiming certainty can make it inconclusive and uninspiring. Those who welcome encouragement to consider all sides and avoid jumping to conclusions, however, will find this a reasoned and balanced analysis of the political moment. (June)

From the Publisher

"The cogency, subtlety and style with which he teases out the paradoxes and perils faced by democracy makes this one of the very best of the great crop of recent books on the subject."—The Guardian (UK)

"How Democracy Ends is a thorough study of democracy and its trials and tribulations on approaching midlife. Inhabitants have enjoyed its fruits: freedom, prosperity, and longevity. Democracy offers us opportunities to do exciting things."—New York Journal of Books

"In his admirable analysis, How Democracy Ends, he says the trouble is that we remember the least helpful bits of history, perpetually harking back to the 1930s to explain the aspects of modern politics we like least: Trump especially."—Evening Standard (UK)

"Presented in pellucid prose free of the jargon of academic political science, How Democracy Ends is a strikingly readable and richly learned contribution to understanding the world today."—New Statesman (UK)

"Democracy isn't dead, not yet, but it could use some physical therapy while it steps gingerly into the grave. For all its optimism, an urgent, necessary book of cold comforts."—Kirkus

"Those who welcome encouragement to consider all sides and avoid jumping to conclusions...will find this a reasoned and balanced analysis of the political moment."—Publishers Weekly

"What kills democracies? And, when they're dead, what replaces them? In this bracing reckoning, the brilliant David Runciman asks a series of questions whose answers take him from Hobbes to Gandhi, from the Colosseum to Facebook. A searching and urgent book."—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States

"As our advanced democracies wither, David Runciman suggests we may have been looking in the wrong places to understand what is happening. This wise and sobering book argues convincingly that neither history nor contemporary autocratic regimes offer a good guide to democratic decay. If and when Western democracies end, they will do so in novel ways not experienced previously or elsewhere. Runciman's book breaks genuinely new ground in a very crowded field."—Dani Rodrik, Harvard University

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

As David Runciman narrates his work on the status of democracy, his voice is affable and calming, even when his words inspire the opposite response. Runciman considers our current political climate to be one in which we are still functioning as a working democracy that is withstanding the rise of autocratic rule. However, he argues, we would do well to acknowledge history. Listeners are given examples of political uprisings, including various forms of a coups d'état. Listeners are encouraged to consider the ability of technology to infiltrate the masses and what it means when democracy “works.” Runciman is a professor of politics and a podcast host; his skill in both these vocations is on full display in this absorbing, if disconcerting, audiobook. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2018-04-11
The good news: Even Donald Trump hasn't been able to kill democracy. The bad news: Yet."Democracy," writes Runciman (Politics/Cambridge Univ.; Politics: Ideas in Profile, 2015, etc.) provocatively, "is civil war without the fighting." In the broadest terms, it fails when that symbolic war turns into a real one. By that account, we're doing OK, inasmuch as even the pitched battles among right- and left-wingers in the United States have not yet descended into bloodshed. The author would seem to share with Steven Pinker the view that the Enlightenment is still alive, if not exactly well, and that overall, we're in better shape than our forerunners in terms of political violence and the ability to accommodate widely divergent views. It could have been otherwise; Runciman opens with a threefold view of possibilities for what might have come of the 2016 election, including the sitting president's refusing to yield office, "the route to civil war," and what actually happened, namely Trump's gaining that office even as "the American political establishment decides to grin and bear it." Reminding readers that authoritarianism comes with executive edicts and not the slow-working legal process, Runciman counsels Americans to breathe a little easier on Trump's judiciary appointments—though, of course, those appointments may be in effect for a generation and more. In the face of Trumpian attacks on laws and customs, he suggests that the institutions of democracy are proving resilient in being effective bulwarks against tyranny. Which is not to say that things can't be improved, especially as an aging population shows less stamina for the hard work of engaging in representative democracy, a system that Runciman holds is "intended to work against our cognitive biases" in thwarting immediate gratification in favor of long-term benefits.Democracy isn't dead, not yet, but it could use some physical therapy while it steps gingerly into the grave. For all its optimism, an urgent, necessary book of cold comforts.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170150144
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	07/24/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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