Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy. In Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, David Elcott, C. Colt Anderson, Tobias Cremer, and Volker Haarmann present a pragmatic and modernist exploration of how religion engages in the public square. Elcott and his co-authors are concerned about the ways religious identity is being used to foster the exclusion of individuals and communities from citizenship, political representation, and a role in determining public policy. They examine the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. Included is a history and political analysis of religion, politics, and policies in Europe and the United States that foster this illiberal rebellion. The authors explore what constitutes a constructive religious voice in the political arena, even in nurturing patriotism and democracy, and what undermines and threatens liberal democracies. To lay the groundwork for a religious response, the book offers chapters showing how Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism can nourish liberal democracy. The authors encourage people of faith to promote foundational support for the institutions and values of the democratic enterprise from within their own religious traditions and to stand against the hostility and cruelty that historically have resulted when religious zealotry and state power combine. Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, as well as for scholars of political science, religion, and democracy.

This book is the first systematic analysis of the efforts of a broad range of contemporary far-right thinkers to popularize their critiques of liberal-democratic norms and institutions and make their ideas the subjects of sustained political and academic debate. The book focuses on outspoken thinkers in western and eastern Europe, Russia, the United States, Canada, and Australia. They include Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, Götz Kubitschek, Pat Buchanan, Fróði Midjord, Jason Jorjani, contributors to the online magazine Quillette, and the elusive personality known as the Bronze Age Pervert. The book explores the diverse intellectual foundations of these thinkers’ positions, the similarities and differences in their ideas, and their prospects for influencing attitudes about democratic politics within their respective countries. It examines diverse movements and schools of thought, including the European New Right, Paleoconservatism, the Alt-right, Identitarianism, White nationalism, and antifeminism. Providing a much-needed global perspective, this book will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of populism, right-wing extremism, identity politics, fascism, racism, and conservatism.

Since 1989, the Cold War has ended, new nations have emerged in Eastern Europe, and revolutionary struggles to establish liberal ideals have been waged against repressive governments throughout the world. Will the promise of liberalism be realized? What can liberals do to make the most of their opportunities and construct enduring forms of political order? In this important and timely book, a leading political theorist discusses the possibility of liberal democracy in Western and Eastern Europe and offers practical suggestions for its realization. Bruce Ackerman begins by sketching the challenges faced a Western Europe free for the first time in half a century to determine its own fate without the constant intervention of the United States and the Soviet Union. Unless decisive steps are taken, this moment of promise can degenerate into a new cycle of nationalist power struggle. Revolutionary action is now required to build the foundations of a democratic federal Europe--a union strong enough to keep the peace and to combat the threat of local tyrannies. Ackerman next considers Eastern Europe and discusses fundamental problems overlooked in the rush to build market economies there. He points out that leading countries--including Poland, Hungary, and Russia--have yet to establish new constitutions, contenting themselves instead with hasty amendments to old Communist documents. This is a great mistake, says Ackerman, for there is an urgent need to constitutionalize liberal revolution, and the window of opportunity for doing this is far smaller than many people realize. Neither judicial efforts to punish collaborators with the old regimes and to redress wrongs done to their victims nor the judicial activism now sweeping Eastern Europe should take priority over the formulation of democratically legitimated constitutions. Ackerman concludes by considering the impact of 1989 on South Africa, Latin America, and the United States, exploring how decisive liberal action throughout the world can help to expand the range of functioning constitutional democracies and recover liberalism's lost revolutionary heritage. .

Written by one America's most eminent sociologists, this book examines the lives and ideals of today's "middle Americans"--whom the more affluent and elite have long put down as an uncultured and unthinking mass--and finds in them the individualistic creed upon which democracy thrives. Neither narcissistic, like that of the "Me Generation" yuppie, nor materialistic, like that of the capitalist, their individualism is the simple desire for personal control over one's social and, especially, economic environment. It is an individualism based on self-reliance, much like that which Alexis de Tocqueville identified as the fundamental American trait over 150 years ago. Far from being right-wing racists, greedy materialists, or uncultured "Joe Sixpacks," Herbert J. Gans describes this diverse group of Americans as the blue, pink, white, and new-collar workers who come in all colors and live modestly in suburbs, small towns, or big city ethnic neighborhoods. Numerically and culturally they make up the majority of Americans, and it is their particular vision of the American Dream to which every presidential candidate appeals. Yet, while they have often been viewed as a mass susceptible to political manipulation, the traditional distrust middle Americans feel toward big government, big business, and other bureaucratic organizations has led them to avoid politics as much as possible. As a result American society, argues Gans, is turning into an "upscale democracy," with voting and other forms of political participation becoming increasingly the province of the rich and well-organized. Current economic and political trends toward greater centralization are enlarging the gulf between middle Americans and those institutions upon which they must depend for their well-being; in Middle American Individualism Gans shows that this growing alienation is the greatest threat to democracy today. How can America reclaim this disaffected and ever more silent majority? Rejecting the usual appeals for less political apathy and more community action, Gans advocates a series of proposals that would bring political institutions to the people rather than forcing them to seek political, economic, and social guidance within the unfamiliar and intimidating surroundings they are forced to deal with now. Calling for a new understanding between liberals and middle Americans, Gans seeks nothing less than a transformation of our present system into a truly representative democracy. Middle American Individualism is the first step in that direction.

A sweeping account of the rise and evolution of liberal internationalism in the modern era For two hundred years, the grand project of liberal internationalism has been to build a world order that is open, loosely rules-based, and oriented toward progressive ideas. Today this project is in crisis, threatened from the outside by illiberal challengers and from the inside by nationalist-populist movements. This timely book offers the first full account of liberal internationalism’s long journey from its nineteenth-century roots to today’s fractured political moment. Creating an international “space” for liberal democracy, preserving rights and protections within and between countries, and balancing conflicting values such as liberty and equality, openness and social solidarity, and sovereignty and interdependence—these are the guiding aims that have propelled liberal internationalism through the upheavals of the past two centuries. G. John Ikenberry argues that in a twenty-first century marked by rising economic and security interdependence, liberal internationalism—reformed and reimagined—remains the most viable project to protect liberal democracy.

“A work of tremendous originality and insight. ... Makes you see the world differently.”—Washington Post Translated into twenty languages ?The Future of Freedom ?is a modern classic that uses historical analysis to shed light on the present, examining how democracy has changed our politics, economies, and social relations. Prescient in laying out the distinction between democracy and liberty, the book contains a new afterword on the United States's occupation of Iraq and a wide-ranging update of the book's themes.

Uiteenzetting over de opkomst van het populisme en het gevaar daarvan voor de democratie.