Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence

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Synopsis
“This global affairs veteran has carved out a solid, mature path, including for ‘flawed democracies’ like the U.S. We’d all be wise to follow.” — Vancouver SunFrom the author of the Claws of the Panda, a Globe and Mail bestseller, Restoring Democracy is quite literally a book for our times. Manthorpe argues that democracy is more resilient than it appears, and is capable of overcoming the attacks from within and without that have sapped its vigour since the end of the Cold War. He begins with a description of the events of 1989, one of the seminal years in modern history. This saw the end of the Cold War, and the apparent conclusive victory of democracy and its civic values. But the view of these changes as a triumph of democracy — as summed up in Francis Fukuyama’s essay "The End of History" — was short-lived. Russia, shorn of its Soviet empire, and the Chinese Communist Party, re-examining its survival after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, began devising ways to counter-attack the West’s triumphalism and these met with considerable success. Internal pressures and contradictions — wealth disparity being chief among them — threaten the survival of many democratic systems. Abandoned industrial workers turn to the repeated platitudes designed to appeal to those left behind without actually offering them the ways and means to catch up. Immigrants, refugees, and the reformist fixations of isolated liberal elites have provided ammunition for would-be despots. Adding to the pressures building on the political norms of our democracies, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic and social stand-still for which no country is prepared.
Copyright:
2020

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
320 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781770865839
Related ISBNs:
9781770865822
Publisher:
Cormorant Books
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Jonathan Manthorpe.
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Computers and Internet, Communication, Philosophy, Politics and Government
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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