LEADER 03673nam 2200589 a 450 001 9910779067403321 005 20230802004604.0 010 $a0-674-06293-0 024 7 $a10.4159/harvard.9780674062931 035 $a(CKB)2550000000087676 035 $a(OCoLC)777264540 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10529606 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000598921 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11352347 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000598921 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10610172 035 $a(PQKB)11636269 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3301039 035 $a(DE-B1597)178290 035 $a(OCoLC)1041187648 035 $a(OCoLC)840438790 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780674062931 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3301039 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10529606 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000000087676 100 $a20110706d2012 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aDemocracy without politics$b[electronic resource] /$fSteven Bilakovics 210 $aCambridge, Mass. $cHarvard University Press$d2012 215 $a1 online resource (314 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-674-05822-4 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $aIntroduction: democracy as self-subverting -- "More than kings yet less than men": Tocqueville on the new extremes of democratic society -- Civilization without the discontents: Tocqueville on democracy as the social state of nature -- The regime of revolution: Claude Lefort on history, nature, and convention after the democratic revolution -- Political phoenix: Sheldon Wolin on the limits and limitlessness of democracy -- Conclusion: post-politics: society without argument. 330 $aIn Western democracies today, politics and politicians are held in contempt by the majority of citizens. Steven Bilakovics argues that this disdain of politics follows neither from the discontents of our liberal political system nor from the preoccupations of a consumer society. Rather, extending Tocqueville's analysis of the modern democratic way of life, he traces the sources of political cynicism to democracy itself. Democratic society's defining openness-its promise of transcendent freedom and unlimited power-renders the everyday politics of argument and persuasion absurd by comparison. Persuasion is devalued relative to the norms of free-market competition and patriotic community, assertions of self-interest and self-expression take the place of arguing together, and political life is diminished by the absence of mediating talk. Bilakovics identifies this trend across the political landscape-in the clashing authenticities of the ";culture war,"; the perennial pursuit of the political outsider to set things right again, the call for a postpartisan politics, rising demands on government alongside falling expectations of what government can do, and in a political rhetoric that is at once petty and hyperbolic. To reform democratic politics and ameliorate its pathologies, Bilakovics calls on us to overcome our anti-political prejudice and rethink robust democracy as the citizen's practice of persuading and being persuaded in turn. 606 $aDemocracy$xPhilosophy$xHistory 606 $aDemocracy$xHistory 615 0$aDemocracy$xPhilosophy$xHistory. 615 0$aDemocracy$xHistory. 676 $a321.8 700 $aBilakovics$b Steven$f1974-$01551417 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910779067403321 996 $aDemocracy without politics$93810904 997 $aUNINA