Democracy or Bonapartism

Two Centuries of War on Democracy

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science
Cover of the book Democracy or Bonapartism by Domenico Losurdo, Verso Books
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Author: Domenico Losurdo ISBN: 9781784787332
Publisher: Verso Books Publication: November 3, 2020
Imprint: Verso Language: English
Author: Domenico Losurdo
ISBN: 9781784787332
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication: November 3, 2020
Imprint: Verso
Language: English

How democracy became a form of soft authoritarian rule

The history of the advent of universal suffrage is a fraught one. As late as the mid-twentieth century, it was still impeded by forms of censitary, racial and sexual discrimination, which proved especially stubborn in countries with the most rooted liberal tradition. Moreover, no sooner had it been achieved than universal suffrage was subject to internal depletion that reduced the exercise of political rights to the acclamation of a leader vested with very wide powers.

In and through a complex historical process, Bonapartism has assumed its current 'soft' form, involving orderly competition and succession and resorting to the iron fist only in emergency situations. The electoral system most conducive to this regime seems to be one involving single-member constituencies. Cutting out organized parties with programmes and, courtesy also of the gigantic concentration of the mass media, depriving the subaltern classes of any political expression, it reduces 'democracy' to a contest between competing leaders, who are the interpreters exclusively oflocal realities or interests, over and above which towers the figure of thenation's charismatic leader. The United States represents the primary country-laboratory of the 'soft Bonapartism' that has also emerged in Italy, and which seems set to become the political regime of our time.

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How democracy became a form of soft authoritarian rule

The history of the advent of universal suffrage is a fraught one. As late as the mid-twentieth century, it was still impeded by forms of censitary, racial and sexual discrimination, which proved especially stubborn in countries with the most rooted liberal tradition. Moreover, no sooner had it been achieved than universal suffrage was subject to internal depletion that reduced the exercise of political rights to the acclamation of a leader vested with very wide powers.

In and through a complex historical process, Bonapartism has assumed its current 'soft' form, involving orderly competition and succession and resorting to the iron fist only in emergency situations. The electoral system most conducive to this regime seems to be one involving single-member constituencies. Cutting out organized parties with programmes and, courtesy also of the gigantic concentration of the mass media, depriving the subaltern classes of any political expression, it reduces 'democracy' to a contest between competing leaders, who are the interpreters exclusively oflocal realities or interests, over and above which towers the figure of thenation's charismatic leader. The United States represents the primary country-laboratory of the 'soft Bonapartism' that has also emerged in Italy, and which seems set to become the political regime of our time.

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