Democracy Against Liberalism

Aviezer Tucker is a political theorist and philosopher. He is an Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, where he works on post-totalitarianism and the philosophy of history. He is the author of The Legacies of Totalitarianism (2015) and Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography (2004).

• 1 What’s Your Problem? Illiberalism, Populism, Authoritarianism Democracy vs. AuthoritarianismLiberalism vs. AbsolutismPopulism vs. TechnocracyEight RegimesThe Scope of Neo-Illiberal DemocracyWeimar, Jackson, SingaporePlan of the Book2 Illiberal Democracy: Old Hemlock in Plastic CupsThe Self-Destruction of Absolute DemocracyNeo-Illiberal Unbalancing of the Liberal ChecksThe JudiciaryCivil ServiceCivil Society and Independent InstitutionsUnmediated PoliticsMediaDisinformationPopulism as Wishful ThinkingHistorical Amnesia and Sisyphean PoliticsNeo-Illiberalism is not Neo-NationalistNeo-Illiberalism is not an Over-Reaction to ImmigrationNeo-Illiberalism is not Confused Socialism3 All the Roads Lead to CaesareaPost-Post-Totalitarian PathwayPath Dependency IIA House Divided: Prognostic InstabilityBudapest on the PotomacThe Surf Beaches of UtopiaDynamic Equilibria4 It Ain’t Necessarily So: The Historical Evitability of Neo-Illiberal DemocracyHistorical EvitabilityA Contemporary Case for Economic InevitabilityWhat happened?ContingenciesHungaryBrexitTrump5 New Liberalism without NostalgiaPreempting PopulismUniversal Basic IncomeDispersing the Anonymous Mob: Tracing Electronic OriginsHistorical Education and CommemorationBreaking the Glass Barriers to MobilityGeographic MobilityStrengthening Liberal InstitutionsDemocratic Election SystemsNew Liberalism without NostalgiaReferencesIndex

“For all his many sins, Herbert Spencer was correct to say, ‘How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.’ Aviezer Tucker has set out to drain a great swamp of such misuse, first showing how lazy conceptual conflations have befuddled thinking about the political distempers of our time, and then, having set the language straight, deriving unimpeachable good sense from the result. Democracy Against Liberalism is a tour de force of clarity and justified optimism bound to be of great value to scholar and student, theoretician and practitioner, alike.”  Adam Garfinkle, founding editor of The American Interest and former speech writer for Colin Powell“An easy read on a hard problem, Aviezer Tucker’s study benefits from being a latecomer in analyzing the erosions of the liberal premises of some democracies across the world. Careful, insightful, and literate, Tucker’s recommendation to attend to root causes without pining for a lost past is a godsend. Only a new vision of liberalism can save it.”  Samuel Moyn, Yale University“Aviezer Tucker’s extensive knowledge of philosophical debates makes Democracy Against Liberalism a compelling read. His prose brings to life even the most analytically difficult elements of this topic, and expertly brings high philosophy down to matters of concrete policy relevance”Richard Youngs, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Europe"Tucker is able to synthesize the myriad apparently unrelated events in many nations, and give it some coherence as a way of understanding larger trends."The Independent Review"Amid a flood of books that seek to explain the rise of populist and authoritarian challenges to liberal democracy, Tucker usefully reminds the reader that liberalism and democracy can exist quite independent of each other."Foreign Affairs"It helps to know things, and Tucker clearly knows a lot about a lot of things. Democracy Against Liberalism . . . has much to teach."American Purpose“Tucker’s theoretical framework is flexible, robust, and provides a clear typology through which neo-illiberal democratic regimes can be examined in international politics.”Andrew Telford, Eurasian Geography and Economics