Understanding Democracy

 

With the increased public and scholarly interest in the meaning and endurance of democracy, this tome by Jason Brennan (Georgetown) provides a lucid and accessible introduction to the concept.  The older, negative assessments (for example, Plato) of democracy to the modern defenders of the centrality of democracy as the “best form of government” are chronicled with care, and in a manner that will appeal to a wide readership (p. 1).  The author offers a “sixth grade model of democracy” to provide a “basic model of how democracy works” (p. 6).  Five core democratic values are explicated to provide for a greater understanding of the concept, including stability, virtue, wisdom, liberty, and equality.  Two chapters are devoted to each democratic value, with a chapter affirming each core value, followed by a closely related chapter that is “skeptical and critical” of the value.  At the end of each chapter a clear and lucid summary is provide.  The treatment of virtue (chaps. 3 and 4) and liberty (chaps. 8 and 9) as democratic values, and as part of democratic theory, also make a significant contribution to the understanding of democracy in practice.