Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies
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A01=Benjamin M. Studebaker
Author_Benjamin M. Studebaker
Category=JPA
Category=JPFK
Category=JPHV
Category=JPS
Category=QDTS
crisis
democracy
despair
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ideology
inequality
legitimacy
political theory
Product details
- ISBN 9781399534680
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 30 Nov 2024
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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In this book, Studebaker develops a theory of legitimacy to explain the crisis of liberal democracy in established democracies, like the United Kingdom and the United States. In these countries there is deep dissatisfaction with political procedures, yet no credible alternatives have emerged. Without alternatives, the crisis cannot produce revolution. Instead, Studebaker suggests that the disagreements that ordinarily lead to political violence instead proliferate throughout the state and society. As the distinction between legitimacy and ideology blurs, efforts to generate legitimacy instead generate greater inequality, pluralism, and gridlock. As different factions try to save democracy in radically different ways, diverse advocates of democracy get in each other's way and even begin to appear authoritarian to one another. In Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies, Studebaker depicts a legitimacy crisis rife with state capacity problems, in which citizens tell each other many conflicting legitimation stories as they search for ways to live with a dissatisfying political system they cannot replace. The result is a legitimation hydra a state that is burdened by an excess of narratives, that struggles to take any action at all.
Benjamin M. Studebaker received his PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge.
