A quarter-century after the classic study The Crisis of Democracy was published, three distinguished political scientists find that, though the “crisis” may have disappeared, public confidence is on the decline in almost all the world’s advanced democracies.
About the Authors
Susan J. Pharr
Susan J. Pharr, Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics at Harvard University, is the author of Losing Face: Status Politics in Japan (1990) and Media and Politics in Japan (1996).
Russell J. Dalton is professor of political science at the University of California–Irvine and author of The Good Citizen: How the Young Are Reshaping American Politics (2007).
The ability of liberal democracies around the world to translate popular views into public policy has been declining. Yet there is no easy way to overcome this trend without weakening the capacity…
Across the West, economic, demographic, and cultural shifts have spurred the rise of populists who embrace majoritarianism and popular sovereignty while showing little commitment to constitutionalism and individual liberty.
If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about…
