Democracy Disfigured

Nadia Urbinati

Published by Harvard University Press 2014

Democracy Disfigured

Opinion, Truth, and the People

Nadia Urbinati

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674726383

Overview
Contents

About this book

Nadia Urbinati diagnoses the ills besetting the body politic and offers a defense of the messy compromises that define democracy. She focuses less on democracy's enemies than on those who pose as its friends: technocrats, partisan demagogues, and media operatives who turn governance into a spectator sport of winners, losers, and fans.

Author information

UrbinatiNadia:

Nadia Urbinati is Kyriakos Tsakopoulos Professor of Political Theory and Hellenic Studies at Columbia University.

Reviews

A beautifully wrought reflection on the 'disfigurement' of democracy. Deploying the ancient analogy and image of the body--as in 'body politic'--Urbinati traces the theoretical sources and consequences of three deformations that have been introduced over time: the epistemic, the populist, and the plebiscitarian. All, the author argues, are 'negative mutations of the procedural character of democracy.'

-- Terence Ball, Arizona State University

Urbinati's book is sure to unsettle current debates, with its provocative critique of democratic 'disfigurations' and the theories that she says misjudge them--either by depoliticizing public opinion, neglecting the danger of its populist manipulation, or reducing it to citizen voyeurism.
-- John Medearis, University of California, Riverside

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Democracy’s Diarchy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	16
2 Unpolitical Democracy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
3 The Populist Power Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	128
4 The Plebiscite of the Audience and the Politics of Passivity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	228
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	299
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 320

eBook

Published: February 25, 2014
ISBN: 9780674726383