| Uniform title | Democrazia o bonapartismo. English |
| Contents |
Foreword / Luciano Canfora -- The Fight for the Vote: A Tortuous and Still-Unfinished History. Benjamin Constant and property qualifications ; Tocqueville and the rejection of direct universal suffrage ; Europe and America ; Property-based discrimination and racial discrimination ; Excluded from democracy ; Property, culture and political rights in John Stuart Mill ; Plural voting ; Property discrimination as a principle of legitimacy ; Emancipation and its reversal ; The denial of political rights, the labour market and slave labour ; The liberal tradition, property-based discrimination and the racialisation of the excluded ; From liberalism to democracy? ; The three stages of the conquest of universal suffrage -- A New Tutor for the 'Childlike' Multitude. Universal suffrage and Bonapartism ; The 'childlike' multitude and the charismatic leader ; Hero worship and the personalisation of power ; Bonapartism, liberalism, liberal Bonapartism ; The personalisation of power, national 'mission' and the externalisation of conflict ; From the 'childlike' multitude to the 'psychology of crowds' -- An Alternative to Property Qualifications: The Origins of Bonapartism, from America to France. French Bonapartism and the American model ; The American Federalists' 'coup d'état' ; France and America: How to leave the revolution behind ; The shadow of ancient Roman dictatorship ; The liberal tradition, the state of exception and the US Constitution ; France between imperial presidency and presidential empire ; America and France: Similarities and differences ; Bonapartism as an alternative to property-based discrimination ; Bonapartism and the imperial mission ; The US president as interpreter of his nation's 'mission' ; Normality and the state of exception ; Bonapartist regime, soft Bonapartism, war Bonapartism -- The Trumpets of the Ruling Classes and the Bells of the Subaltern. The representative regime and the armed forces ; Political control and economic control of the means of information ; The editor, the newspaper and the party ; Newspapers, organised parties and the subaltern classes ; Parties, trade unions and repressive individualism -- |
| Contents |
The Bonapartist Regime's Baptism of Fire. Italy and the United States: How to force the 'childlike' multitude into war ; A political regime well-suited to the state of exception ; 'Mission' and total mobilization ; 'Americanism' and rites of purification and expulsion of evil ; Perfect and imperfect Caesarism in the US, Britain and Germany ; Weber: Caesarism and the primacy of foreign policy ; Mussolini, Pareto, the 'Two Democracies' and Bonapartism ; The communist movement and the spectre of Bonapartism ; Caesarism, dictatorship and Bonapartism -- Universal Suffrage, Proportional Representation and the Reaction Against It. The single-member constituency and new forms of property discrimination ; Proportionality as the completion of universal suffrage ; Between emancipation and disemancipation: Women's suffrage ; Democracy, parties and proportional representation in Kelsen ; Corporatist parliament and plural voting ; Nationalists, fascists and the single-member constituency ; The single-member system and the political and social control of the electorate ; Gobetti, the proportional system and Britain ; Universal suffrage, the 'present tragedy of the bourgeoisie' and its possible remedies ; Liberalism, fascism and disemancipation -- The Twentieth Century: Between Emancipation and Disemancipation. The 'childlike' multitude, democracy and the market ; The critique and redefinition of democracy in Schumpeter ; From the joint-stock company to the market ; The emancipation process and the theorisation of 'social and economic rights' ; Hayek and the nostalgia for a world uncontaminated by universal suffrage ; The nineteenth- and twentieth-century critique of democracy and its end point ; Universal suffrage and '"social" or totalitarian democracy' ; Disemancipation and 'minimising' democracy: The case of Popper ; Disemancipation and 'minimising' democracy: The case of Bobbio ; The weakness of the resistance to the disemancipation process ; Disemancipation and the 'New World Order' ; Colonial ideology, old and new ; The return of 'foreigners' and the future of democracy -- The Triumph of Soft Bonapartism. Democracy, market, total manipulation ; The twentieth century and the new victory of soft Bonapartism ; Two competing plebiscitary investitures ; Soft Bonapartism, competitive monopartisanship and the power of lobbies ; An instrumental reading of history, and the advent of 'the chancellor's democracy' ; Gaullism and the presidential republic in France ; The single-member system, Bonapartism and the political decapitation of the subaltern classes ; The trajectory of today's liberalism ; Soft Bonapartism and Marx's analysis of 'bourgeois' democracy ; The new disemancipation and the long-term future of democracy. |
| Abstract |
"How an iron fist donned democracy's velvet glove. The history of universal suffrage is best understood as a conflict between liberal elites and democratic workers' movements, according to Domenico Losurdo. John Stuart Mill, for example, argued that electoral influence should be more pronounced among the educated -- and wealthy -- than among those working with their hands. Every vote ought not to be counted the same. Countries with deep liberal roots have historically been quick to restrain the spread of the franchise, persisting in discrimination based on property, race, and gender. In this context, the rise of popular presidents and premiers, vested with extraordinary powers, has served to stimy attempts to associate politically and mobilize for meaningful change. This is modern Bonapartism, a soft authoritarianism in which popularity, stirred up by a news media dominated by the interests of the rich, replaces true democratic expression. As alternatives to this system drift toward the horizon, Bonapartism is set to become the dominant political regime of our era. Understanding the history of its development and the contradictory forces behind it may permit us to move towards true democracy."-- Taken from publisher's web site. |
| General note | "First published as 'Democrazia o bonapartismo. Trionfo e decadenza del suffragio universale', © Bollati Boringhieri, 1993"--Title page verso. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Issued in other form | Online version: Losurdo, Domenico. Democracy or Bonapartism London ; New York : Verso, 2024 9781784787332 |
| Genre/form | History. |
| LCCN | 2023041748 |
| ISBN | 9781784787318 |
| ISBN | 1784787310 hardcover |
| ISBN | electronic book |
