Democracy is in crisis because voices of the people are ignored due to a politics of mass society. After demonstrating how the French Fourth Republic failed, wherein Singapore’s totalitarianism is a dangerous model, Washington is enmeshed in gridlock, and there is a global democracy deficit, solutions are offered to revitalize democracy as the best form of government. The book demonstrates how mass society politics operates, with intermediate institutions of civil society (media, pressure groups, political parties) no longer transmitting the will of the people to government but instead are concerned with corporate interests and have developed oligarchical mindsets. Rather than micro-remedy bandaids, the author focuses on the need to transform governing philosophies from pragmatic to humanistic solutions.

In The Myth of Democratic Failure, Donald A. Wittman refutes one of the cornerstone beliefs of economics and political science: that economic markets are more efficient than the processes and institutions of democratic government.

Beginning with the premise that democracies are often deeply implicated in their own downfall, The Theory of Democide challenges the conventional view of how and why democracies collapse by demonstrating that democratic collapse is often a direct result of the inherent logic of democracy itself.

This open access book focuses on the nexus between “party system stability” and “democratic consolidation”, using Slovenia as a case study. Its findings are presented from a comparative perspective to illustrate the commonalities and differences found in research on Central European post-socialist countries and former Yugoslav countries. On the one hand, Slovenia’s characteristics (including the characteristics of its transition to democracy) are far more similar to those of Central European post-socialist countries than Western Balkan countries. On the other, Slovenia shares some similarities with other parts of the former Yugoslavia – especially its experiences with the political system of socialist self-management, elements of a market economy under socialism, and war following the end of socialism (albeit the conflict in Slovenia was very short and rather mild in comparison to those in other parts of socialist Yugoslavia). Slovenia’s experiences with rapid but limited democratic backsliding under the Janša government (March 2019–June 2022) were halted by the 2022 national election – in contrast to the more widely known cases of Hungary and Poland, where such backsliding took place incrementally over a longer period of time that included several election cycles. Danica Fink-Hafner is Professor at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Only four countries around the world do not currently define themselves as democracies. But many more do not fulfil the four basic requirements of democracy: free and fair elections, active participation of citizens in politics, protection of human rights, and the rule of law. Since 2015, far-right and populist politicians have been on the rise throughout the West. Is populism the new face of democracy? Is democracy simply the will of the people? Can any existing government claim to be truly democratic? This captivating, articulate volume explores and interrogates each form of democracy and questions whether they remain fit for purpose today.

Civil war in the United States is now a mainstream topic due to apparent signs of ongoing planning. This book reveals why in several ways. First, four major ideological drivers of possible conflict are identified. Next, ten arenas of ongoing nonviolent civil war are traced as increasingly for micro-level violence. Then several dozen alternative scenarios are traced to explain how civil war could break out very soon. Finally, measures are delineated about how the country might prevent calamity. Anarchists, Christian Nationalists, Libertarians, and Triumphalists are determined to impose their views on the diverse nation and reduce opponents to second-class status. They demonstrate their blatant determination through nonviolent political contests involving conspiracy theories, cultural differences, verbal contestation, anti-elitism, racism, well-armed groups with nationwide membership, political demonization, media disinformation, Congressional hyperpartisanship, reducing constitutional rights, and legal fights by some states against others. But often they go beyond and commit violence out of sheer enjoyment in making opponents suffer. Beyond Polarized American Democracy: From Mass Society to Coups and Civil War suggests remedies for each of ten types of nonviolent civil war, but most are long-term solutions that cannot deal with an imminent threat. Accordingly, the book reviews governmental and military resources as well as efforts to counteract the ideological contest through political innovations. The analysis flows from the sociological Mass Society Paradigm, which argues that democracy’s survival depends upon the ability of civil society to relay the needs of the people to institutions of government and provide effective pressure for corrective action. As developed to explain the rise of Nazism in Germany, the analysis applies lessons from studies of coups and civil wars to identify how to prevent the loss of democracy in the United States.