Four Threats

Four Threats
Author :
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Total Pages : 304
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1250244420
ISBN-13 : 9781250244420
Rating : 4/5 (420 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Four Threats by : Suzanne Mettler

Download or read book Four Threats written by Suzanne Mettler and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An urgent, historically-grounded take on the four major factors that undermine American democracy, and what we can do to address them. While many Americans despair of the current state of U.S. politics, most assume that our system of government and democracy itself are invulnerable to decay. Yet when we examine the past, we find that to the contrary, the United States has undergone repeated crises of democracy, from the earliest days of the republic to the present. In The Four Threats, Robert C. Lieberman and Suzanne Mettler explore five historical episodes when democracy in the United States was under siege: the 1790s, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Depression, and Watergate. These episodes risked profound, even fatal, damage to the American democratic experiment, and on occasion antidemocratic forces have prevailed. From this history, four distinct characteristics of democratic disruption emerge. Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power – alone or in combination – have threatened the survival of the republic, but it has survived, so far. What is unique, and alarming, about the present moment is that all four conditions are present in American politics today. This formidable convergence marks the contemporary era as an especially grave moment for democracy in the United States. But history provides a valuable repository from which contemporary Americans can draw lessons about how democracy was eventually strengthened — or in some cases weakened — in the past. By revisiting how earlier generations of Americans faced threats to the principles enshrined in the Constitution, we can see the promise and the peril that have led us to the present and chart a path toward repairing our civic fabric and renewing democracy.


Four Threats Related Books

Four Threats
Language: en
Pages: 304
Authors: Suzanne Mettler
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-08-11 - Publisher: St. Martin's Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An urgent, historically-grounded take on the four major factors that undermine American democracy, and what we can do to address them. While many Americans desp
Threat to Democracy
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Fathali M. Moghaddam
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019 - Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

2020 PROSE Award Finalist This book explores the recent international decline in democracy and the psychological appeal of authoritarianism in the context of ra
Democracy under Threat
Language: en
Pages: 344
Authors: Ursula van Beek
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-01-19 - Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book addresses some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is democracy threatened by globalisation? Is there a legitimacy crisis in contemporary demo
Democracy at Risk
Language: en
Pages: 282
Authors: Jennifer L. Merolla
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-10-15 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How do threats of terrorism affect the opinions of citizens? Speculation abounds, but until now no one had marshaled hard evidence to explain the complexities o
Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy
Language: en
Pages: 84
Authors: Robert W. McChesney
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-01-04 - Publisher: Seven Stories Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"In this passionate and strikingly lucid essay, Robert McChesney makes clear why all of us should be alarmed about the effects of media mergers on the future of