{"product_id":"9781610170222","title":"After Tocqueville: The Promise and Failure of Democracy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe End of Democracy?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe fall of the Berlin Wall. The collapse of the Iron Curtain. The Orange Revolution. The Arab Spring.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe rush of events in recent decades seems to confirm that Alexis de Tocqueville was right: the future belongs to democracy. But take a closer look. The history of democracy since the 1830s, when Tocqueville wrote \u003ci\u003eDemocracy in America\u003c\/i\u003e, reveals a far more complicated picture. And the future, author Chilton Williamson Jr. demonstrates, appears rather unpromising for democratic institutions around the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fall of communism sparked the popular notion that the spread of democracy was inevitable. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAfter Tocqueville\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e challenges this sunny notion. Various aspects of twenty-first-century life that Tocqueville could scarcely have imagined—political, economic, social, religious, intellectual, technological, environmental—militate against democracy, both in developing societies and in the supposedly democratic West.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis piercing, elegantly written book raises crucial questions about the future of democracy, including:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003eJust what \u003ci\u003eis\u003c\/i\u003e democracy? As Williamson shows, definitions and concepts have become so varied that the term is effectively meaningless.\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eHow does a system whose institutions and habits arose in small-scale societies adapt to a postmodern, globalized world?\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eAfter two centuries of democratization, are Western countries really more \u003ci\u003efree\u003c\/i\u003e?\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eHow can democracy endure when people care more about procuring what they want than about securing liberty?\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eHow does a political system survive when it is beset by problems that cannot be solved by political means?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo decades ago, Francis Fukuyama famously pronounced the “end of history.” History, it turns out, is still very much with us. Democracy (whatever it is) may not be in the decades and centuries to come.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ISI Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47051471716592,"sku":"9781610170222","price":27.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781610170222_p0.jpg?v=1763838916","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781610170222","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}