Is Democracy ALost Cause? Paradoxes Of An Imperfect Invention

Is Democracy ALost Cause? Explores The Current Debate On DemocracyIt Starts By Discussing The Meaning Of 'democracy' And How The Understanding Of This Important Political Concept Has Either Broadened Or Contracted, Depending On Changing Political CircumstancesMastropaolo Then Poses The Question Of What It Means For Democracy To Be The 'government Of The People'He Deals With The Way In Which Democratic Government Has Been Affected By Changes In The Fabric Of Society, By The Evolution Of Democratic Theory Itself, And By The Transformations Affecting The State And Political PartiesPolitical Class And Citizens' Attitudes Towards Democratic Politics, Increasingly Characterised By Resentment And Often Taking The Form Of An Antipolitics, Are Analysed In The Concluding ChaptersParadoxes Of An Imperfect Invention Is The Apt Subtitle That Alfio Mastropaolo Chose For His Magnum OpusAs AGuide, The Subtitle Suggests That We Read The Book With ACritical But Open MindModern Democracy Is An Institutional FactIt Exists By ASet Of Constitutive Rules, Themselves The Product Of Human InventionThe Invention Had No Firm, Willful Starting Point And It Is Not Eternal, Neither By Definition Nor In Its Set Of RulesThese Are Never Perfect, Not Because Subject To Infringement And Change But Because They Are Not Meant To BeContrary To The Rules Of Football Or Chess, Also Institutional Inventions With Their Own History, They Do Not Aim At AFixed OutcomeFurther, When Democracy Seems To Become The Only Game In Town, When Other Games Fade Out, Then The Restlessness Of Human Invention If Nothing Else Sets The Course Of Human Affairs In Motion AgainTo Paraphrase An American President, It's Politics, Stupid, And Politics Is Here To StayBut Democracy? To Address The Question, The Best We Can Do Is Reculer Pour Mieux SauterMastropaolo Provides AThorny, Relentless Guide Through The ExerciseGiuseppe Di Palma, Emeritus Professor, University Of California, Berkeley Alfio Mastropaolo Is Professor Of Political Science At The University Of TurinHe Published: Antipolitica: Alle Origini Della Crisi Italiana l'ancora, Napoli, , La Mucca Pazza Della Democrazia: Nuove Destre, Populismo, Antipolitica bollati Boringhieri, Torino, , The Centerleft's Poisoned Victory edWith JLBriquet, Berghahn, New York, .
'