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The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerabilities of Democracies - A Response to Tocqueville's Challenge (Paperback, New)
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The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerabilities of Democracies - A Response to Tocqueville's Challenge (Paperback, New)
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We struggle in the modern age to preserve individual freedoms and
social self-government in the face of large and powerful
governments that lay claim to the symbols and language of
democracy, according to Vincent Ostrom.
Arguing that democratic systems are characterized by
self-governing--not state- governed--societies, Ostrom contends
that the nature and strength of individual relationships and
self-organizing behavior are critical to the creation and survival
of a democratic political system. Ostrom begins with a basic
contradiction identified by Alexis de Tocqueville. De Tocqueville
suggested that if citizens acted on the basis of their natural
inclinations they would expect government to provide for them and
take care of their needs. Yet these conditions contradict what it
means to be self-governing. Ostrom explores the social and cultural
context necessary for a democratic system to flourish emphasizing
the important role of ideas and the use of language in defining and
understanding political life. Discussing differences in the ideas
about social organization among various cultural and intellectual
traditions, he considers the difficulties encountered over time in
building democratic societies in America, Asia, Europe, and Africa.
He outlines lessons from these experiences for the efforts to build
democracy in the developing world and the countries emerging from
communism.
Based on a lifetime of thinking about the social conditions
necessary to support a democracy, this book makes a significant
contribution to the recent discussion about civil society and the
fragility of our formal and informal social institutions and will
be of interest to social scientists, historiansand all readers
concerned with the state of democracy in the modern world.
Vincent Ostrom is Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science
Emeritus and Co-Director of the Workshop on Political Theory and
Policy Analysis, Indiana University. He is the author of many works
on political theory and public administration.
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