A review of Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals, by Ernest Gellner.
About the Author
Marc F. Plattner, founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy, is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy. He also serves as cochair of the International Advisory Board of the Institute for Political Studies at the Portuguese Catholic University.
As the experience of Latin America makes clear, a strong civil society is not necessarily a democratic one. Democratic deficits within civil society jeopardize its ability to perform its proper…
The widely hailed writings of Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani, including his latest book, The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World, reveal a remarkably narrow and Manichean worldview.
Read the full essay here. The recent history of Eastern Europe can best be understood as a transition to a new social contract between the postcommunist state that emerged from…