Democracy Rules, JanWerner Muller
Democracy Rules, JanWerner Muller
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Democracy Rules

Author: Jan-Werner Müller

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Unabridged: 6 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/08/2022


Synopsis

A much-anticipated guide to saving democracy, from one of our most essential political thinkers.

Everyone knows that democracy is in trouble, but do we know what democracy actually is? Jan-Werner Müller, author of the widely translated and acclaimed What Is Populism?, takes us back to basics in Democracy Rules. In this short, elegant volume, he explains how democracy is founded not just on liberty and equality, but also on uncertainty. The latter will sound unattractive at a time when the pandemic has created unbearable uncertainty for so many. But it is crucial for ensuring democracy's dynamic and creative character, which remains one of its signal advantages over authoritarian alternatives that seek to render politics (and individual citizens) completely predictable.

Müller shows that we need to re-invigorate the intermediary institutions that have been deemed essential for democracy's success ever since the nineteenth century: political parties and free media. Contrary to conventional wisdom, these are not spent forces in a supposed age of post-party populist leadership and post-truth. Müller suggests concretely how democracy's critical infrastructure of intermediary institutions could be renovated, re-empowering citizens while also preserving a place for professionals such as journalists and judges.

About Jan-Werner Müller

Jan-Werner Muller is Roger Williams Straus Professor of Social Sciences at Princeton University. He has been a fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and has held many visiting professorships. His public affairs commentary has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Foreign Affairs, the New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books, among other publications. His book Fear and Freedom won the Bavarian Book Prize in 2019.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Robert

Maybe political theory isn't for me. I mostly read history, and I found this book to be a profitless slog, even at just 185 pages. The author is clearly very knowledgeable, but I found the approach to be needlessly meandering. This is frustrating, because my sense is that he had some fairly clear an......more

Goodreads review by Anna

Fine, but nothing new......more

Goodreads review by Jeffrey

The unofficial subtitle of this book is Liberty Equality Uncertainty (as printed on the intriguing cover design). That summarizes the primary concept of the book: democracy requires liberty and equality, and we should expect uncertainty! Human nature, and the mixture of so many opinions and ideas wi......more

A bit out side of my comfort zone... which made it hard to follow a lot of the through lines the book was tracing. So much good content in the footnotes, though! A whole world of interesting points about Athenian democracy & odd statistics! BTG #7......more

Goodreads review by Joseph

I liked parts of this book, but I had trouble grasping the larger point of it or the overall argument. The idea seemed to be to explore the rules of democracy: what institutions, rules, norms, etc define democracy and keep it healthy. However, the book was oddly structured, just jumping from topic t......more