How democracy ends: a review and reevaluation
Last month I attended a talk by David Runciman, the author of a recent book called How Democracy Ends . I was prepared for outrage-stirring and pearl-clutching, but was pleasantly surprised by the quality of his arguments, which I’ve summarised below, along with my own thoughts on these issues. Note, however, that I haven’t read the book itself, and so can’t be confident that I’ve portrayed his ideas faithfully. Which lessons from history? Many people have compared recent populist movements with the stirrings of fascism a century ago. And indeed it’s true that a lot of similar rhetoric being thrown around. But Runciman argues that this is one of the least interesting comparisons to be made between these two times. Some things that would be much more surprising to a denizen of the early 20th century: Significant advances in technology Massive transformations in societal demographics Very few changes in our institutions The last of those is particularly surprising in light