Автор: Benjamin Isakhan, Stephen Stockwell
Название: The Secret History of Democracy
Издательство: Palgrave Macmillan
Год: 2011
ISBN: 9780230244214
Язык: English
Формат: pdf
Размер: 10,2 mb
Страниц: 252
The notion that democracy could have a 'secret' history might at first seem strange to many readers. Indeed, the history of democracy has become so standardized, is so familiar and appears to be so complete that it is hard to believe that it could hold any secrets whatsoever. The ancient Greek practice of demokratia and the functions of the Roman Republic are foundational to Western understanding of politics; school textbooks introduce the Magna Carta and the rise of the English Parliament; Hollywood blockbusters recount the events surrounding the American Declaration of Independence; many best-selling novels have been written about the French Revolution; and the gradual global spread of the Western model of democracy has been a recurrent news story since the end of the Cold War. So pervasive is this traditional story of democracy that it has achieved the status of received wisdom: endlessly recycled without criticism by policy-makers, academics, in the popular media and in classrooms across the world.
The central argument of this book is that there is much more to the history of democracy than this foreshortened genealogy admits. There is a whole 'secret' history, too big, too complex and insufficiently Western in character to be included in the standard narrative. But even in this standard history of democracy there are many alternatives that open up the possibilities of what democracy might be: participatory or representative; majoritarian or minimalist; demotic or elitist; with positions filled by election or by lot; with sovereignty resting in one (the constitutional monarch) or in the many (the will of the people). So what is democracy? How do we judge the good from the bad?
Introduction: Democracy and History
Benjamin Isakhan and Stephen Stockwell
Part I Pre-Athenian Democracy
1 What is so 'Primitive' about 'Primitive Democracy'? Comparing the Ancient Middle East and Classical Athens
Benjamin Isakhan
2 Before Athens: Early Popular Government in Phoenicia and Greek City-States
Stephen Stockwell
3 Republics and Quasi-Democratic Institutions in Ancient India
Steven Muhlberger
4 Digging for Democracy in China
Pauline Keating
Part II Democracy in the 'Dark Ages'
5 Behind a Veil: Islam's Democratic History
Mohamad Abdalla and Halim Rane
6 Ideals and Aspirations: Democracy and Law-Making in Medieval Iceland
Patricia Pires Boulhosa
6 Ideals and Aspirations: Democracy and Law-Making in Medieval Iceland
Patricia Pires Boulhosa
7 Democratic Culture in the Early Venetian Republic
Stephen Stockwell
Part III Indigenous Democracy and Colonialism
8 Africa's Indigenous Democracies: The Baganda of Uganda
Immaculate Kizza
9 The Hunters Who Owned Themselves
Philippe Paine
10 Aboriginal Australia and Democracy: Old Traditions, New Challenges
Larissa Behrendt
11 The Pre-History of the Post-Apartheid Settlement: Non-Racial Democracy in South Africa's Cape Colony, 1853-1936
Poppy Fry
Part IV Alternative Currents in Modern Democracy
12 Birthing Democracy: The Role of Women in the Democratic Discourse of the Middle East
K. Luisa Gandolfo
13 The Streets of Iraq: Protests and Democracy after Saddam
Benjamin Isakhan
14 Monitory Democracy? The Secret History of Democracy since 1945
John Keane
Conclusion: Democratizing the History of Democracy
Benjamin Isakhan and Stephen Stockwell
References
Index
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The Secret History of Democracy 
