Demopolis: Democracy before Liberalism in Theory and Practice (The Seeley Lectures)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.39 (977 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B072ZTNK4K |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 393 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-09-12 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
His previous books have won prizes from the American Philological Association, the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics, and the Association of Academic Publishers, and have been translated into French, German, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Korean, and Turkish. He has been the Chairman of both a top-ranked humanities department
Demopolis' residents aim to establish a secure, prosperous, and non-tyrannical community, where citizens govern as a collective, both directly and through representatives, and willingly assume the costs of self-government because doing so benefits them, both as a group and individually. That, rather than majority tyranny, is what democracy meant in ancient Athens, before liberalism. Participatory self-government is the basis of political practice in 'Demopolis', a hypothetical modern state powerfully imagined by award-winning historian and political scientist Josiah Ober. What did democracy mean before liberalism? What are the consequences for our lives today? Combining history with political theory, this book restores the core meaning of democracy as collective and limited self-government by citizens. It a
Ober provides a clear and clarifying analytical framework for understanding democracy itself, prior to or apart from its admixture with liberalism. This book is a masterpiece.' Danielle Allen, Harvard UniversityAdvance praise: 'There is no better guide than Joshiah Ober to Athenian democracy, and now, also to its significance for understanding the value of democracy today, even where modern liberal rights and values may not exist. The result is not merely a powerful work in political philosophy but also a compelling argument for the human value of dignitarian democracy: forms of self-rule defined and constrained by the value of human dignity. Advance praise: 'Demopolis is Josiah Ober's long-awaited case for the intrinsic value of democrac