How Democracy Ends, David Runciman
How Democracy Ends, David Runciman
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Synopsis

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In How Democracy Ends, David Runciman argues that we are trapped in outdated twentieth-century ideas of democratic failure.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

About David Runciman

David Runciman is professor of politics at the University of Cambridge and the author of How Democracy Ends, among other books. A contributing editor for the London Review of Books, he lives in Cambridge, England.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Murtaza on June 22, 2018

A short but compelling analysis as to why democracy as we know it is pretty much over, though it will continue ambling along in zombie form for the foreseeable future. While you could argue that the book was prompted by Trump, authoritarian populism is only one factor that is making our old democrat......more

Goodreads review by Joshua on September 12, 2018

There is some not terrible political analysis and prognostication in this book. The author is a well-read political scientist and a decent writer who has some compelling points to make. My problem is with the core set of assumptions that the author seems to be working from, a few of which are: 1) We......more

Goodreads review by Greg on July 17, 2018

I have been reading deeply on this subject since the dismal events of 2016: Brexit and Trump’s election. Accordingly, there is very little new that Professor Runciman added to my knowledge of the very real and great challenges of our time. However, for someone just beginning to investigate the diffic......more

Goodreads review by Guilherme on November 11, 2022

Neste livro David Runciman traz três fatos que poderiam acabar com uma democracia ou até mesmo com A democracia. São eles: 1)o golpe de Estado, 2)uma catástrofe de nível nacional ou mundial, ou 3) a ação das redes sociais insuflando na população a vontade de tomar medidas antidemocráticas. No Brasil......more

Goodreads review by Rose on January 17, 2023

How democracy ends. Spoiler: Lots of ways, but it’s probably ok for now. There’s were quite a few of these kinds of books being released during the Trump presidency, and the author here is quite frank about being prompted by the Trump (and note that it was written before the January 6th insurrection),......more


Quotes

"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