DEMOCRACY ERODES FROM THE TOP Leaders Citizens and the Challenge of Populism in Europe

BARTELS Larry M.

ISBN 10: 0691244502 / ISBN 13: 9780691244501

Published by Princeton University Press, 2023. 9780691244501, 2023

About this Item

1st edn 1st printing. 8vo. Original yellow and white lettered blue cloth (Fine), dustwrapper (Fine). Pp. 270, illus with figures and tables (no inscriptions).

Seller Inventory # 185569

Bibliographic Details

• Title: DEMOCRACY ERODES FROM THE TOP Leaders Citizens and the Challenge of Populism in Europe
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2023. 9780691244501
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691244502
• ISBN 13: 9780691244501
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Modern History

About this title

Synopsis

Why leaders, not citizens, are the driving force in Europe’s crisis of democracy

An apparent explosion of support for right-wing populist parties has triggered widespread fears that liberal democracy is facing its worst crisis since the 1930s. Democracy Erodes from the Top reveals that the real crisis stems not from an increasingly populist public but from political leaders who exploit or mismanage the chronic vulnerabilities of democracy.

In this provocative book, Larry Bartels dismantles the pervasive myth of a populist wave in contemporary European public opinion. While there has always been a substantial reservoir of populist sentiment, Europeans are no less trusting of their politicians and parliaments than they were two decades ago, no less enthusiastic about European integration, and no less satisfied with the workings of democracy. Anti-immigrant sentiment has waned. Electoral support for right-wing populist parties has increased only modestly, reflecting the idiosyncratic successes of populist entrepreneurs, the failures of mainstream parties, and media hype. Europe’s most sobering examples of democratic backsliding―in Hungary and Poland―occurred not because voters wanted authoritarianism but because conventional conservative parties, once elected, seized opportunities to entrench themselves in power.

By demonstrating the inadequacy of conventional bottom-up interpretations of Europe’s political crisis, Democracy Erodes from the Top turns our understanding of democratic politics upside down.

About the Author

Larry M. Bartels is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Law and May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University. His books include Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age and (with Christopher H. Achen) Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government (both Princeton).