Abstract

From a historical and cross-cultural perspective it cannot be denied that most democracies failed. Only western democracies for a short while - from the fall of Soviet communism to the rise of radical Islam - believed themselves to be invincible. This book marks the start of a daring new debate and re-introduces anti-democratic thought and practice to the academic discourse and into the syllabus. It wishes to offer a serious discussion of anti-democratic thought, rather than an apology of democracy. The book outlines a positive agenda for the future. In a comprehensive overview, contributors to this volume discuss theoretical perspectives as well as examples of anti-democratic thought from ancient Greece to modern-day Israel and Bangladesh. A book that grew out of an international workshop on Anti-Democratic Thought organized by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS) and held at the 2007 annual conference "Workshops in Political Theory" in Manchester, England.