When the People Rule

Ewa Atanassow is Professor of Political Thought at Bard College, Berlin. She is the author of Tocqueville's Dilemmas, and Ours: Sovereignty, Nationalism, Globalization (2022). Thomas Bartscherer is the Peter Sourian Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at Bard College. He is co-editor of the critical edition of Hannah Arendt's The Life of the Mind, Switching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and Arts and Erotikon: Essay on Eros, Ancient and Modern. David A. Bateman is Associate Professor in Government and the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University. He is the author Disenfranchising Democracy (2018) and co-author of Southern Nations (2018).

• Introduction Ewa Atanassow, Thomas Bartscherer and David Bateman; Part I. 1. Plato and the problems of modern politics Thomas Bartscherer; 2. The sovereign and the tyrant: boundaries and violation in oedipus Elizabeth K. Markovits; 3. The fact of fiction: Popular sovereignty as belief and reality Ioannis D. Evrigenis; 4. Thomas hobbes and the making of popular sovereignty Richard Boyd; 5. Popular sovereignty on trial: Tocqueville vs Schmitt Ewa Atanassow; Part II. 6. 'As god rules the universe': reflections on the people and the state in early America Ira Katznelson; 7. The sovereign people and the liberal democratic state David A. Bateman; 8. Three vignettes: popular sovereignty in French history Daniella Sarnoff; 9. The founding of India and popular sovereignty Ornit Shani; 10. The 'other' boundary problem: fictions of popular sovereignty at the state's edge Matthew Longo; 11. The #BlackLivesMatter movement and black public opinion: a new populist divide in the black community? Alvin B. Tillery; 12. Popular sovereignty and recognition H. Abbie Erler; 13. Populism, popular sovereignty, and periphery Julia R. Azari and Alexis Nemecek; Part III. 14. The place of constitutional courts in regimes embracing popular sovereignty: recent problems in American Self-Governance Carol Nackenoff; 15. Popular sovereignty, populism, and stories of peoplehood Rogers M. Smith; 16. Popular Sovereignty in the Trump Era: a case study of pedagogy and practice Nicole Mellow and Andrew J. Perrin; 17. The voices of the people Adam Davis.

''We, the People…' are the beginning words of the American Constitution, perhaps 'the' founding document of popular sovereignty. Yet who are the People, and who decides who they are, and how? Such questions imply contested notions of identity, belonging, representation and agency. The excellent contributions to this timely volume do not shy away from controversy when pointing to the many challenges autocratic tendencies and nationalisms pose to the liberal order. The book is a 'must-read' for students of democracy and the future of liberalism.' Helmut K. Anheier, Hertie School