Why Democracies Flounder and Fail

Download or read book Why Democracies Flounder and Fail written by Michael Haas and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy is in crisis because voices of the people are ignored due to a politics of mass society. After demonstrating how the French Fourth Republic failed, wherein Singapore’s totalitarianism is a dangerous model, Washington is enmeshed in gridlock, and there is a global democracy deficit, solutions are offered to revitalize democracy as the best form of government. The book demonstrates how mass society politics operates, with intermediate institutions of civil society (media, pressure groups, political parties) no longer transmitting the will of the people to government but instead are concerned with corporate interests and have developed oligarchical mindsets. Rather than micro-remedy bandaids, the author focuses on the need to transform governing philosophies from pragmatic to humanistic solutions.