Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times
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A01=Nancy G. Bermeo
Abstention
Activism
Author_Nancy G. Bermeo
Authoritarianism
Bolsheviks
Cambridge University Press
Capitalism
Category=JHBC
Category=JPHV
Category=JPHX
Category=KCS
Centre-right politics
Centrism
Chileans
Civil society
Communism
Coup d'etat
Criticism
Criticism of democracy
Defection
Democracy
Democratization
Dictatorship
Economic problem
Election
Electoral alliance
Elite
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eq_business-finance-law
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eq_society-politics
Extremism
Far-left politics
Far-right politics
Government
Hostility
Institution
Insurgency
Kindness
Labour movement
Latin America
Left-right politics
Left-wing politics
Legislature
Major party
Marxism
Mass mobilization
Military dictatorship
Military elite
Nazi Party
Party leader
Party system
Peronism
Political party
Political spectrum
Political system
Political violence
Politician
Politics
Populism
Radicalism (historical)
Radicalization
Regime
Regime change
Representative democracy
Right-wing dictatorship
Right-wing politics
South America
Subversion
Suffrage
Terrorism
Trade union
Tupamaros
Two-party system
Unemployment
Universal suffrage
Voting
War
Working class
Product details
- ISBN 9780691089706
- Weight: 369g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 10 Aug 2003
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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For generations, influential thinkers--often citing the tragic polarization that took place during Germany's Great Depression--have suspected that people's loyalty to democratic institutions erodes under pressure and that citizens gravitate toward antidemocratic extremes in times of political and economic crisis. But do people really defect from democracy when times get tough? Do ordinary people play a leading role in the collapse of popular government? Based on extensive research, this book overturns the common wisdom. It shows that the German experience was exceptional, that people's affinity for particular political positions are surprisingly stable, and that what is often labeled polarization is the result not of vote switching but of such factors as expansion of the franchise, elite defections, and the mobilization of new voters. Democratic collapses are caused less by changes in popular preferences than by the actions of political elites who polarize themselves and mistake the actions of a few for the preferences of the many.
These conclusions are drawn from the study of twenty cases, including every democracy that collapsed in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in interwar Europe, every South American democracy that fell to the Right after the Cuban Revolution, and three democracies that avoided breakdown despite serious economic and political challenges. Unique in its historical and regional scope, this book offers unsettling but important lessons about civil society and regime change--and about the paths to democratic consolidation today.
Nancy Bermeo is Professor of Political Science at Princeton University. She is the author of "Revolution Within a Revolution" (Princeton) and a senior editor of "World Politics".
