An incisive diagnosis of the debilitating disease that has infected democracy and subverted its egalitarian promise.
An insightful assessment of the illiberal populism that has arisen in numerous countries around the world.
Issacharoff, professor of constitutional law at NYU and author of Fragile Democracies, begins the book “with the simple observation that democracy today is under siege.” Fueling this incipient authoritarianism are economic insecurity, xenophobia, and democracy’s failure to deliver services to the laboring classes. “Strongman” leaders derive their legitimacy from elections in which they “bypass institutionalized forms of politics in favor of direct and frequent communication with the population.” Once elected, they use intralegal mechanisms to wear down and demonize their opponents, thereby undermining the peaceful transfer of power. Central to illiberal populism’s emergence is the weakening of legislative bodies and political parties, with the latter now unable to discipline their members and pursue effective methods of compromise. As a result, corruption is inevitable, involving personal aggrandizement, clientelism, and the erosion of the democratic safeguards that enable a free press, independent courts, administrative competence, and a separation of powers. Populist leaders govern mainly with “a dizzying array of deals and favors.” The author notes Masha Gessen’s concept of the “mafia state,” which is “defined as ‘a specific, clan-like system in which one distributes money and power to all other members.’ ” Issacharoff draws on political theory and constitutional law to describe authoritarian regimes in the U.S. (Trump), Hungary (Orbán), India (Modi), and Turkey (Erdoğan), among other countries. At the core of his argument is the belief that “the key to democratic stability is the strength of core institutions both inside and outside government.” He calls for restoring government capability, revitalizing the legislative branch, reengaging the citizenry, and recentering institutional forms of democratic politics. He ends optimistically by pointing to the resistance of the press, the courts, and the business community—and, regarding the U.S., the historical resilience of its basic institutions.
An incisive diagnosis of the debilitating disease that has infected democracy and subverted its egalitarian promise.Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780197674758
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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