The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, transformed the way in which Americans and their leaders viewed the world. The tragic events of that day helped give rise to a foreign policy strategy commonly referred to as the “Bush Doctrine.” At the heart of this doctrine lie a series of claims about the need to encourage liberal democracy as the antidote to jihadist terrorism. President George W. Bush proclaimed in a variety of addresses that democracy now represented the “single surviving model” of political life to which all people aspired. In the course of making this argument, President Bush linked his policies to an overarching “teleology” of progress. This discourse suggested that the United States might use force to hasten the emergence of liberal norms and institutions in rogue states. With a sense of irony, some commentators soon referred to the Bush administration’s position as “Leninist” because of its determination to bring about the so-called “end of history” today. Yet, surprisingly, these critics had little more to add. This book assesses in greater depth the Bush administration’s claim to comprehend the purpose of historical progress. Developing a concept termed “democratic vanguardism,” this study investigates the idea of liberal modernity, the role of the United States as a force for democracy, and the implications of using military intervention in the service of idealistic ends. It examines disputes among political theorists, public intellectuals, and elected statesmen that help to enrich our understanding of the United States’ efforts under President Bush to bend history to its will.

"Providing an innovative conceptualization to extremist political movements founded upon "world-historic" populations and vanguard party organizations, Vanguardism sets out a new path in investigating the intellectual and historical influences that created extremist politics, the totalitarian movements and regimes of the twentieth century, and a framework for interpreting extremism in the present. Expanding its view across the turbulent intellectual currents of the nineteenth century, Philip W. Gray illustrates how these ideas shaped the shared ideational and organizational structures that would develop into Leninism, Fascism, and Nazism in the early twentieth century. Moving beyond the Second World War, the book explicates how vanguardism did not vanish with the war's conclusion, but modified throughout the period of national liberation movements and Western extremist groups over the ensuing decades. Concluding in the present with an eye to the future, Gray presents a framework for comprehending the extremist movement of today, and how organizational shifts can give us clues to the forms of totalitarian politics of tomorrow. Original and provocative, Vanguardism will become essential reading for everyone looking to understand totalitarianism and extremist politics of our time"--

The authors convincingly argue that the democratic tradition and practice that was emerging in Socialist Nicaragua could well have served as a model for other Third World states. After showing why participating democracy didn't triumph, they conclude with an assessment of the 1990 elections and their impact on the future of democracy in Nicaragua. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Providing an innovative conceptualization to extremist political movements founded upon "world-historic" populations and vanguard party organizations, Vanguardism sets out a new path in investigating the intellectual and historical influences that created extremist politics, the totalitarian movements and regimes of the twentieth century, and a framework for interpreting extremism in the present. Expanding its view across the turbulent intellectual currents of the nineteenth century, Philip W. Gray illustrates how these ideas shaped the shared ideational and organizational structures that would develop into Leninism, Fascism, and Nazism in the early twentieth century. Moving beyond the Second World War, the book explicates how vanguardism did not vanish with the war’s conclusion, but was modified throughout the period of national liberation movements and Western extremist groups over the ensuing decades. Concluding in the present with an eye to the future, Gray presents a framework for comprehending the extremist movement of today, and how organizational shifts can give us clues to the forms of totalitarian politics of tomorrow. Original and provocative, Vanguardism will become essential reading for everyone looking to understand totalitarianism and extremist politics of our time.

A unique reinterpretation of democracy that shows how history's most vocal champions of democracy from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson to John Rawls have contributed to a pervasive, anti-democratic ideology, effectively redefining democracy to mean "rule by the elites." The rise of global populism reveals a tension in Western thinking about democracy. Warnings about the "populist threat" to democracy and "authoritarian" populism are now commonplace. However, as Emily B. Finley argues in The Ideology of Democratism, dismissing "populism" as anti-democratic is highly problematic. In effect, such arguments essentially reject the actual popular will in favor of a purely theoretical and abstract "will of the people." She contends that the West has conceptualized democracy-not just its populist doppelgänger-as an ideal that has all of the features of a thoroughgoing political ideology which she labels "democratism." As she shows, this understanding of democracy, which constitutes an entire view of life and politics, has been and remains a powerful influence in America and leading Western European nations and their colonial satellites. Through a careful analysis of several of history's most vocal champions of democracy, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, John Rawls, and American neoconservatives and liberal internationalists, Finley identifies an interpretation of democracy that effectively transforms the meaning of "rule by the people" into nearly its opposite. Making use of democratic language and claiming to speak for the people, many politicians, philosophers, academics, and others advocate a more "complete" and "genuine" form of democracy that in practice has little regard for the actual popular will. A heterodox argument that challenges the prevailing consensus of what democracy is and what it is supposed be, The Ideology of Democratism offers a timely and comprehensive assessment of the features and thrust of this powerful new view of democracy that has enchanted the West.

Activists in Transition examines the relationship between social movements and democratization in Indonesia. Collectively, progressive social movements have played a critical role over in ensuring that different groups of citizens can engage directly in—and benefit from—the political process in a way that was not possible under authoritarianism. However, their individual roles have been different, with some playing a decisive role in the destabilization of the regime and others serving as bell-weathers of the advancement, or otherwise, of Indonesia's democracy in the decades since. Equally important, democratization has affected social movements differently depending on the form taken by each movement during the New Order period. The book assesses the contribution that nine progressive social movements have made to the democratization of Indonesia since the late 1980s, and how, in turn, each of those movements has been influenced by democratization.