How will democracy end? And what will replace it? A preeminent political scientist examines the past, present, and future of an endangered political philosophy.

Since the end of World War II, democracy's sweep across the globe seemed inexorable. Yet today, it seems radically imperiled, even in some of the world's most stable democracies. How bad could things get?

In How Democracy Ends , David Runciman argues that we are trapped in outdated twentieth-century ideas of democratic failure. By fixating on coups and violence, we are focusing on the wrong threats. Our societies are too affluent, too elderly, and too networked to fall apart as they did in the past. We need new ways of thinking the unthinkable—a twenty-first-century vision of the end of democracy, and whether its collapse might allow us to move forward to something better.

A provocative book by a major political philosopher, How Democracy Ends asks the most trenchant questions that underlie the disturbing patterns of our contemporary political life.

'A gripping and illuminating picture of how strongmen have deployed violence, seduction, and corruption' Daniel Ziblatt, co-author of How Democracies Die
'A timely analysis of how a certain kind of charisma delivers political disaster' Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny
Today, countries from Russia to India, Turkey to America are ruled by men who combine populist appeal with authoritarian policies. These leaders have reshaped their countries around them, creating cults of personality which earn the loyalty of millions. And, as historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat shows, they do so by drawing on a playbook of behaviour established by figures such as Benito Mussolini, Muammar Gaddafi and Adolf Hitler.
So why - despite the evidence of history - do strongmen still hold such appeal for us? Ruth Ben-Ghiat reveals how, for a hundred years, charismatic leaders have emerged at moments of uncertainty and transition, manipulating electoral systems, brutally suppressing opposition, gaining control of the media and distorting the imaginations of the people they rule over in pursuit of absolute power.
Authoritarians hold their greatest appeal when society is polarised. Skilfully exposing both the power and the weakness of the strongman, this fierce and perceptive history is a vital step in understanding how to combat the forces which seek to derail democracy and seize our rights.

Donald Trump's presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we'd be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang--in a revolution or military coup--but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.

Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die--and how ours can be saved.

begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time—Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia—which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination.

“Reveals how the liberties of the people wither when voters embrace politicians who promote the divisive politics of us versus them.”—David Cay Johnston, author of The Making of Donald Trump and It’s Even Worse Than You Think
“This is an important and essential book.”—Errol Morris, filmmaker and author of The Ashtray
Fascist politics are running rampant in America today—and spreading around the world. A Yale philosopher identifies the ten pillars of fascist politics, and charts their horrifying rise and deep history.
As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century. Alarmed by the pervasive rise of fascist tactics both at home and around the globe, Stanley focuses here on the structures that unite them, laying out and analyzing the ten pillars of fascist politics—the language and beliefs that separate people into an “us” and a “them.” He knits together reflections on history, philosophy, sociology, and critical race theory with stories from contemporary Hungary, Poland, India, Myanmar, and the United States, among other nations. He makes clear the immense danger of underestimating the cumulative power of these tactics, which include exploiting a mythic version of a nation’s past; propaganda that twists the language of democratic ideals against themselves; anti-intellectualism directed against universities and experts; law and order politics predicated on the assumption that members of minority groups are criminals; and fierce attacks on labor groups and welfare. These mechanisms all build on one another, creating and reinforcing divisions and shaping a society vulnerable to the appeals of authoritarian leadership.
By uncovering disturbing patterns that are as prevalent today as ever, Stanley reveals that the stuff of politics—charged by rhetoric and myth—can quickly become policy and reality. Only by recognizing fascists politics, he argues, may we resist its most harmful effects and return to democratic ideals.
“With unsettling insight and disturbing clarity, How Fascism Works is an essential guidebook to our current national dilemma of democracy vs. authoritarianism.”—William Jelani Cobb, author of The Substance of Hope

#1 New York Times Bestseller
A personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the twentieth century and how its legacy shapes today’s world, written by one of America’s most admired public servants, the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state
A Fascist, observes Madeleine Albright, “is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.”
The twentieth century was defined by the clash between democracy and Fascism, a struggle that created uncertainty about the survival of human freedom and left millions dead. Given the horrors of that experience, one might expect the world to reject the spiritual successors to Hitler and Mussolini should they arise in our era. In Fascism: A Warning, Madeleine Albright draws on her experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her distinguished career as a diplomat to question that assumption.
Fascism, as she shows, not only endured through the twentieth century but now presents a more virulent threat to peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II. The momentum toward democracy that swept the world when the Berlin Wall fell has gone into reverse. The United States, which historically championed the free world, is led by a president who exacerbates division and heaps scorn on democratic institutions. In many countries, economic, technological, and cultural factors are weakening the political center and empowering the extremes of right and left. Contemporary leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are employing many of the tactics used by Fascists in the 1920s and 30s.
Fascism: A Warning is a book for our times that is relevant to all times. Written by someone who has not only studied history but helped to shape it, this call to arms teaches us the lessons we must understand and the questions we must answer if we are to save ourselves from repeating the tragic errors of the past.

In this title, two renowned political scientists make the contrarian, research-based case that - regardless of any other factors political scientists or historians may find relevant - the calculations and actions of rulers are the driving force of all politics, and the primary goal of rulers is to maintain power as long as possible. In this clever and accessible book, Bueno de Mesquita and Smith introduce us to their perspective of the political world. They bare the logic of politics, starting from the simple premise that leaders pursue their own ends, and that populations either have, or more often don't have, the power to constrain them to a significant degree. The book is organized by a series interconnected questions, among them: Why do leaders who wreck their countries keep their jobs for so long? Why do autocracies have dismal economic policies? How are there so many suffering people in resource-rich lands? Why do 'natural disasters' disproportionately strike poor nations? Why do 'evil-doers' so often collect loads of foreign aid? Why are democracies so good at war? In answering these questions, the authors look at politics, the choices of public policies, and even decisions about war and peace as lying outside of conventional thinking about culture and history. They set aside ideas of civic virtue and psychopathology. Such notions simply are not central to understanding what leaders do and why they do it. Instead, Bueno de Mesquita and Smith see politicians as self-interested louts, just the sort of people you wouldn't want to have over for dinner, but without whom you might not have dinner at all. And from this perspective, they are able to answer some perplexing mysteries of politics, shed light on what we read in the newspapers every single day, and offer realistic ways of improving human governance.

This book revitalizes the discourse on backsliding democracy and the global rise of autocracy, extending the consequences of their changes to a sustainable future.In three sections, the book systematically examines diverse pathways leading autocracies to rise and spread worldwide and debates the future consequences. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the book conceptualizes the rise of autocracy and the backsliding of democracy by studying dictatorship, authoritarianization processes, autocracy’s diffusion, and populism. It reveals the global spread of autocracy and reflects on the challenges this poses to, and the likely impacts on, a sustainable future.This book is of key interest to scholars and students of autocracy/autocratization, democracy and democratization, political sociology, sustainability, and more broadly to international relations and comparative politics.

All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man at the top. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services and professional propagandists. The members of these networks are connected not only within a given country, but among many countries. The corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country can arm, equip, and train the police in another. The propagandists share resources—the troll farms that promote one dictator’s propaganda can also be used to promote the propaganda of another—and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America. Unlike military or political alliances from other times and places, this group doesn’t operate like a bloc, but rather like an agglomeration of Autocracy, Inc. Their relations are not based on values, but are rather transactional, which is why they operate so easily across ideological, geographical, and cultural lines. In truth, they are in full agreement about only one Their dislike of us, the inhabitants of the democratic world, and their desire to see both our political systems and our values undermined. That shared understanding of the world—where it comes from, why it lasts, how it works, how the democratic world has unwittingly helped to consolidate it, and how we can help bring it down—is the subject of this book.

A bestselling, National Book Award-winning journalist's essential guide to understanding, resisting, and recovering from the ravages of our tumultuous times.

In the run-up to the 2016 election, Masha Gessen stood out from other journalists for the ability to convey the ominous significance of Donald Trump's speech and behavior, unprecedented in a national candidate. Within forty-eight hours of his victory, the essay "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" had gone viral, and Gessen's coverage of his norm-smashing presidency became essential reading for a citizenry struggling to wrap their heads around the unimaginable. Thanks to the special perspective that is the legacy of a Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, Gessen has a sixth sense for signs of autocracy--and the unique cross-cultural fluency to delineate its emergence to Americans. This incisive book provides an indispensable overview of the calamitous trajectory of the past few years. Gessen not only highlights the corrosion of the media, the judiciary, and the cultural norms we hoped would save us but also tells us the story of how a short few years have changed us, from a people who saw ourselves as a nation of immigrants to a populace haggling over a border wall, heirs to a degraded sense of truth, meaning, and possibility. Surviving Autocracy is an inventory of ravages but also a beacon to recovery--or to enduring, and resisting, an ongoing assault.

A short book about the challenges to liberalism from the right and the left by the bestselling author of The Origins of Political Order .

Classical liberalism is in a state of crisis. Developed in the wake of Europe's wars over religion and nationalism, liberalism is a system for governing diverse societies, which is grounded in fundamental principles of equality and the rule of law. It emphasizes the rights of individuals to pursue their own forms of happiness free from encroachment by government.

It's no secret that liberalism didn't always live up to its own ideals. In America, many people were denied equality before the law. Who counted as full human beings worthy of universal rights was contested for centuries, and only recently has this circle expanded to include women, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people, and others. Conservatives complain that liberalism empties the common life of meaning. As the renowned political philosopher Francis Fukuyama shows in Liberalism and Its Discontents , the principles of liberalism have also, in recent decades, been pushed to new extremes by both the right and the left: neoliberals made a cult of economic freedom, and progressives focused on identity over human universality as central to their political vision. The result, Fukuyama argues, has been a fracturing of our civil society and an increasing peril to our democracy.

In this short, clear account of our current political discontents, Fukuyama offers an essential defense of a revitalized liberalism for the twenty-first century.