Post-Democracy is a polemical work that goes beyond current complaints about the failings of our democracy and explores the deeper social and economic forces that account for the current malaise. Colin Crouch argues that the decline of those social classes which had made possible an active and critical mass politics has combined with the rise of global capitalism to produce a self-referential political class more concerned with forging links with wealthy business interests than with pursuing political programmes which meet the concerns of ordinary people. He shows how, in some respects, politics at the dawn of the twenty-first century returns us to a world familiar well before the start of the twentieth, when politics was a game played among elites. However, Crouch maintains that the experience of the twentieth century remains salient and it reminds us of possibilities for the revival of politics. This engaging book will prove challenging to all those who claim that advanced societies have reached a virtual best of all possible democratic worlds, and will be compelling reading for anyone interested in the shape of twenty-first-century politics.

This 2007 book studies the impact of the media on politics in the United States during the last half-century.

In Post-Democracy (Polity, 2004) Colin Crouch argued that behind the façade of strong institutions, democracy in many advanced societies was being hollowed out, its big events becoming empty rituals as power passed increasingly to circles of wealthy business elites and an ever-more isolated political class. Crouch’s provocative argument has in many ways been vindicated by recent events, but these have also highlighted some weaknesses of the original thesis and shown that the situation today is even worse. The global financial deregulation that was the jewel in the crown of wealthy elite lobbying brought us the financial crisis and helped stimulate xenophobic movements which no longer accept the priority of institutions that safeguard democracy, like the rule of law. The rise of social media has enabled a handful of very rich individuals and institutions to target vast numbers of messages at citizens, giving a false impression of debate that is really stage-managed from a small number of concealed sources. Crouch evaluates the implications of these and other developments for his original thesis, arguing that while much of his thesis remains sound, he had under-estimated the value of institutions which are vital to the support of a democratic order. He also confronts the challenge of populists who seem to echo the complaints of Post-Democracy but whose pessimistic nostalgia brings an anti-democratic brew of hatred, exclusion and violence.

This book of a renowned political scientist and specialist in political theory fundamentally challenges the new fashion of post-democracy by offering an outlook on ‘neo-democracy’. The political periods are similar to epochs in modern art, where ‘neo’ succeeded Post-impressionism and Post-expressionism. This book reviews the topical debate on postdemocracy and scenarios of decline in democratic theory without the alternative of dictatorship. It discusses criticism of politics in the old and new media and a new culture of protest. It addresses new forms of participation and the dangers of populism and right-wing extremism. It proposes institutional reforms of democracy, of the parliamentary system and the party state, in negotiations of coalition-building, in governmental declarations and for the policy output. The book concludes with a debate of normative models of democracy from ‘Post-democracy’ to ‘Neo-democracy’, models of justice and theories of democratic reform.

States like Russia and Ukraine may not have gone back to totalitarianism or the traditional authoritarian formula of stuffing the ballot box, cowing the population and imprisoning the opposition - or not obviously. But a whole industry of 'political technology' has developed instead, with shadowy private firms and government 'fixers' on lucrative contracts dedicated to the black arts of organizing electoral success. This book uncovers the sophisticated techniques of the 'virtual' political system used to legitimize post-Soviet regimes; entire fake parties, phantom political rivals and 'scarecrow' opponents. And it exposes the paramount role of the mass media in projecting these creations and in falsifying the entire political process. Wilson argues that it is not primarily economic problems that have made it so difficult to develop meaningful democracy in the former Soviet world. Although the West also has its 'spin doctors', dirty tricks, and aggressive ad campaigns, it is the unique post-Bolshevik culture of 'political technology' that is the main obstacle to better governance in the region, to real popular participation in public affairs, and to the modernization of the political economy in the longer term.

Frustrated Democracy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan follows a newly independent oil-rich former Soviet republic as it adopts a Western model of democratic government and then turns toward corrupt authoritarianism. Audrey L. Altstadt begins with the Nagorno-Karabagh War (1988–1994) which triggered Azerbaijani nationalism and set the stage for the development of a democratic movement. Initially successful, this government soon succumbed to a coup. Western oil companies arrived and money flowed in—a quantity Altstadt calls "almost unimaginable"—causing the regime to resort to repression to maintain its power. Despite Azerbaijan's long tradition of secularism, political Islam emerged as an attractive alternative for those frustrated with the stifled democratic opposition and the lack of critique of the West's continued political interference. Altstadt's work draws on instances of censorship in the Azerbaijani press, research by embedded experts and nongovernmental and international organizations, and interviews with diplomats and businesspeople. The book is an essential companion to her earlier works, The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity Under Russian Rule and The Politics of Culture in Soviet Azerbaijan, 1920–1940.

A leading American legal scholar offers a surprising account of the incompleteness of prevailing theories of freedom of speech. Robert C. Post shows that the familiar understanding of the First Amendment, which stresses the “marketplace of ideas” and which holds that "everyone is entitled to an opinion," is inadequate to create and preserve the expert knowledge that is necessary for a modern democracy to thrive. For a modern society reliably to answer such questions as whether nicotine causes cancer, the free and open exchange of ideas must be complemented by standards of scientific competence and practice that are both hierarchical and judgmental. Post develops a theory of First Amendment rights that seeks to explain both the need for the free formation of public opinion and the need for the distribution and creation of expertise. Along the way he offers a new and useful account of constitutional doctrines of academic freedom. These doctrines depend both upon free expression and the necessity of the kinds of professional judgment that universities exercise when they grant or deny tenure, or that professional journals exercise when they accept or reject submissions.