A refreshingly evenhanded overview of democracy’s global prospects.
A neatly structured survey examines the prospects for universal democracy.
Hoover Institution fellow Diamond (Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, 2005, etc.) has been passionately engaged in the global quest for freedom since his student days in the mid-1970s, when he traveled through despotic hotspots like Portugal, Thailand and Nigeria. He begins by establishing the “universal value” of democracy—not just as a Western concept (though Asians and Muslims do have a stronger adherence to authority) or a luxury for a wealthy nation, but a state to which all aspire. Access to an electoral process, checks on authority, civil liberties and an independent judiciary are rights that everyone desires, Diamond avers. He tracks the “democratic boom” since the mid-’70s from Portugal, Spain and the Philippines to East Asia, South Africa and the Soviet Union. He also follows the recent “democratic recession” in Pakistan and under Vladimir Putin in the Soviet Union. He examines the internal and external factors that drive and sustain a democracy, among them legitimacy, economic development, regional influence (e.g., the desire to join the European Union) and outside sanctions. The author isolates each problem area of the world and considers its uneasy progress toward democracy. Latin America, he says, is vexed by poverty, unemployment, inequality and the weakness and corruption of state social services and criminal-justice systems. Africa is struggling to overcome the “dictators for life” syndrome. The Middle East is unlikely to truly democratize “until there is a transformation in the regional security context.” Finally, Diamond sets out his checklist for making democracy work, by establishing integrity and transparency in government. He doesn’t flinch from criticizing the U.S. government’s role in world affairs, and his view from a think-tank perch is wide-ranging and carefully considered, making this an especially effective work.
A refreshingly evenhanded overview of democracy’s global prospects.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8050-7869-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
If that promise of clarity is what awaits us all, then death doesn’t seem so awful, and that is a great gift from Sacks. A...
Valediction from the late neurologist and writer Sacks (On the Move: A Life, 2015, etc.).
In this set of four short essays, much-forwarded opinion pieces from the New York Times, the author ponders illness, specifically the metastatic cancer that spread from eye to liver and in doing so foreclosed any possibility of treatment. His brief reflections on that unfortunate development give way to, yes, gratitude as he examines the good things that he has experienced over what, in the end, turned out to be a rather long life after all, lasting 82 years. To be sure, Sacks has regrets about leaving the world, not least of them not being around to see “a thousand…breakthroughs in the physical and biological sciences,” as well as the night sky sprinkled with stars and the yellow legal pads on which he worked sprinkled with words. Sacks works a few familiar tropes and elaborates others. Charmingly, he reflects on his habit since childhood of associating each year of his life with the element of corresponding atomic weight on the periodic table; given polonium’s “intense, murderous radioactivity,” then perhaps 84 isn’t all that it’s cut out to be. There are some glaring repetitions here, unfortunate given the intense brevity of this book, such as his twice citing Nathaniel Hawthorne’s call to revel in “intercourse with the world”—no, not that kind. Yet his thoughts overall—while not as soul-stirringly inspirational as the similar reflections of Randy Pausch or as bent on chasing down the story as Christopher Hitchens’ last book—are shaped into an austere beauty, as when Sacks writes of being able in his final moments to “see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.”
If that promise of clarity is what awaits us all, then death doesn’t seem so awful, and that is a great gift from Sacks. A fitting, lovely farewell.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-451-49293-7
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
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