Post-Democracy 1st Edition

by Colin Crouch (Author)

22 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0745633152

ISBN-10: 0745633153

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Post-Democracy is a polemical work that goes beyond current complaints about the failings of our democracy and explores the deeper social and economic forces that account for the current malaise.

Colin Crouch argues that the decline of those social classes which had made possible an active and critical mass politics has combined with the rise of global capitalism to produce a self-referential political class more concerned with forging links with wealthy business interests than with pursuing political programmes which meet the concerns of ordinary people. He shows how, in some respects, politics at the dawn of the twenty-first century returns us to a world familiar well before the start of the twentieth, when politics was a game played among elites. However, Crouch maintains that the experience of the twentieth century remains salient and it reminds us of possibilities for the revival of politics.

This engaging book will prove challenging to all those who claim that advanced societies have reached a virtual best of all possible democratic worlds, and will be compelling reading for anyone interested in the shape of twenty-first-century politics.

Colin Crouch
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A brilliant short text, among the most penetrating analyses of the modern condition I have read."
The Guardian

"A powerful plea for a politics of the left in the twenty-first century. He is no advocate of the Third Way. For him the stark alternative is liberal democracy or egalitarian democracy, and he clearly opts for the latter. Those who disagree with his analysis or his conclusions will have to make their case, and will no doubt do so. Crouch’s book is sure to give rise to lively debate.’
Ralf Dahrendorf

"Colin Crouch has the great gift of bringing theory down to accessible earth. Social capital theory is applied to the policies needed for civil renewal. This thoughtful book is a culmination of all that we have been expecting-and more-from his Fabian pamphlets and Political Quarterly articles on the dilemmas of democracy in troubled times."
Professor Bernard Crick

From the Inside Flap

Post-Democracy is a polemical work that goes beyond current complaints about the failings of our democracy and explores the deeper social and economic forces that account for the current malaise.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Polity; 1st edition (August 13, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 144 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0745633153
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0745633152
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.4 x 0.52 x 7.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #342,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #104 in Political Ideologies
- #567 in Democracy (Books)
- #2,960 in Political Science (Books)

Customer Reviews:
22 ratings

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William H. DuBay

The Hollowing Out of Democracy

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2015

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i often wonder, "Where are today's great projects? We see China proceeding in great projects like high-speed rail, massive water projects, and building the "One Road, One Belt" commercial Silk Road corridor that will connect Xian with Kazakstan and eventually Moscow. Crouch shows us why our has lost its competence to do anything at all. As Michael Moore showed us, government has been hijacked by the big corporations.

Crouch shows how this hollowing out of democracy is proceeding apace in European countries just as it is in the U.S. Crouch follows the familiar narrative of our coming from an age in the 1800s in which the government was a game played by the ruling elite, through the achievements of the labor movement, to the 1960s and the highest levels of prosperity and highest standard of living in history, to our post-democratic times, in which we have the bare-bones of democracy but without active citizen participation. Crouch calls this development "the commercialization of citizenship."

Crouch is very good in describing how government itself has been demonized by the ruling elite. The large corporation has become the dominant institution of society and the model of competence and efficiency. This results not only in the disabling of governments ability to do things, especially big things, but also running government programs on the corporation model, with the emphasis on the bottom line instead of the delivery of high-standard services to the widest possible constituency. This robs government agents also of their confidence in their own competence to do things, making the government look like the village idiot.

In the last chapter on remedies, Crouch recommends more active participation of citizens in politics, especially in motivating their private causes and movements to become more involved. The lobbies are here to stay and they are a major force that citizens can use in governmental reform. It is not enough any more to just give to private causes and charities, but to urge them to use more political strategies.

2 people found this helpful

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Henry J. Farrell

A brilliant little book on the shape of modern politics

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2013

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If you want to date it back to its original publication in Italian, this short book is now ten years old. I don't think it has had a big US readership, but it has been quite influential in the UK, and very influential indeed in continental Europe. Crouch asks what are the underlying structural conditions which explain why we've seen so much of the life-blood sucked out of democracy in the last few decades? He thinks that these have everything to do with the specific consequences of neo-liberalism. One part of his argument is the common claim that states find themselves constrained by the increased bargaining power of business. But he also points to more subtle problems. In particular, he argues that governments are losing their capacity to do things, as their functions become increasingly marketized. More and more state functions are put out to the private sector (sometimes under direct pressure from multilateral organizations). As this happens, governments lose their capacity to direct and coordinate, and increasingly become just another nexus in a set of anonymous chains of contracting and subcontracting. As the line between government and business becomes ever blurrier, politicians become ever more closely embroiled with business leaders, taking on and representing their interests. The political aspects of the state shrink to a hard and unaccountable core, surrounded by a variety of contracting relationships.

This does not lead to the complete abandonment of democratic forms. We do not live in non-democratic states, but in post-democratic state. As Crouch puts it, we are on the declining segment of the parabola, long after the apex was reached. Hence, we still have democratic forms - elections, parties and the like. However, they become increasingly disconnected from mass publics. Politicians and parties simply don't need public support any more in the way that they used to. A little bit of volunteerism is still useful - even artificial entities such as Berlusconi's Forza Italia! eventually acquired local branches. But it doesn't have much connection to policy, which is made in a circuit between business and lobbyists. This results in corrupt relationships and regular scandals, which further devalue conventional politics, and paradoxically render accountability more difficult, not less

Crouch's analysis has some important implications. First - he suggests that this is a perverse outcome for the ideology of neo-liberals, which claimed that marketized relationships would address the problems identified by public choice scholars. But what we have seen is not an expansion of free markets, but instead increased oligopolistic concentration, combined with an ever-larger set of ambiguous relationships in which government and business interests are impossible to distinguish from each other. Crouch argues that Hayek never solved the problem of politics - a Hayekian order is unsustainable because businesses can do better from playing with the rules of the game than from engaging in competition. An implication of Crouch's arguments is that the only way that neo-liberalism will work is in a confined system, where there are clear demarcations between politics and markets, and specifically an emphatic recognition of an inviolable realm of politics where the public good, rather than the pursuit of private benefits dominates. How to get there from where we are is less obvious. The old system worked because we had a class which recognized its common interests and was prepared to act on them. We do not have any equivalent today.

There are bits of the book that are outdated. There's little discussion of the Internet. The world after the economic crisis is a different one than the one that Crouch describes (although, as he discusses in his more recent book on the strange non-death of neo-liberalism, not nearly as different as as one might have hoped). But its main lessons and arguments are entirely relevant today. People who like Chris Hayes's "Rise of the Elites," but want to read something with a broader historical, cross-national and sociological sweep than Chris is able to give in a book aimed at a more general audience will find it invaluable.

17 people found this helpful

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Joel D. Wolfe

accessible overview of neoliberal democracy

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2013

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Crouch here provides a very clear and thorough, if brief, picture of the fate of democracy, with a focus on the UK. He emphasizes the domination of corporations, the collapse of the unions as important modes of public representation, and the problems arising from privatizing welfare state programs. This book provides a basis for delving into his very important but more challenging collection of essays, "The Strange Non-death of Neoliberalism".

2 people found this helpful

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A. Ramsey

I heard Colin Crouch via podcast

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2013

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The text elaborates on the discussion delivered at London School of Economics last year. I think the content is nearly relevant to our current socioeconomic status.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Lennieston

Rest recycled book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2019

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Very good copy arrived on time

Rameses

Well evidenced book about the influence of business on government and the substantial erosion of western democracies.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 26, 2015

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Well evidenced book about the influence of business on government and the substantial erosion of western democracies.

One person found this helpful

sebastiao

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 13, 2017

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Good

psychothriller

A brilliant and thought-provoking read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 9, 2016

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A brilliant book that I have been giving as presents to everyone I know. It's Christmas? Gifts sorted. Your birthday? Here's a wonderful book for you to read. Holy communiion? er.. maybe you're a bit young for it, but sure, keep it till you're older. :D

One person found this helpful

olecafe

securing democracy

Reviewed in Germany on February 12, 2013

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Colin Crouch has written a very readable essay about developments in (European) democratic performance. Inspired by an opposition to "neoliberalism" he tells a convincing story about the influence of economic thinking on democratic organization and outcome. The wide range of examples and historical reach of his argument makes the essay informative and interesting. My main reservation against the book is that it will not convince any "neoliberal" of the dangers of their thinking, that the empirical evidence remains scarce and eclectic and that the overall idea of post-democracy relies on the figure of a parabel thereby drawing a pessimistic picture without answering what comes next.

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Post-Democracy 1st Edition

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