Overview

"Democratization is a sociopolitical process and the society that may grow out of it where people make decisions on matters affecting them. It is an unending struggle to win such rights and power, to hold and to extend them. The contending classes are essentially the poor and weak majority of the people and the elite of wealth, status, and power. This book begins with the study of politics in democratic Athens 508-322 BCE, and how it revolved around the divisions between an uneducated poor majority of citizens and a small, wealthy elite. All citizens were deemed equally capable of holding political office, and life in democratic Athens was itself an education through the wide political experience a citizen necessarily acquired. The second study is of Britain’s centuries long and profoundly incomplete democratization, polarizing usually the urban poor, unequally against the Grandees, the oligarchy, and subsequent elites. A third exemplifier is South Africa, beginning in the 1970s-80s when two big processes were going on simultaneously: an external armed struggle led by the African National Congress (ANC), and a path-breaking domestic democratization represented by the United Democratic Front and the trade unions. The democratization that emerges here is a matter of aspiration and impulse by determined men and women, which fail more often than they succeed, yet appear again in other times and places. Two main models of democracy are in contention. A representative from revolving around free elections, in which competing elites ""get themselves elected"" utilizing their wealth and celebrity. The liberal form achieved preeminence in Britain and the United States over some 150 years, but is now under serious threat from its own dysfunctionalities and the alienation of its citizens from its institutions and their elitist, self-serving values. And there is the participatory model, now being approached again since the mid-1970s in many places, from Portugal, Poland and Czechoslovakia, to South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt, and Iceland. Many such impulses will fail, but they offer hope, and on the record, immense satisfaction to their participants."

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9781498502450

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Reviews

Good, author or coauthor of six books on democracy, social inequalities, and southern African politics, offers a study that favorably compares participative democracy to liberal political systems. His key argument is that the liberal capitalist democracy has failed and that participatory forms are rising in many places. The liberal form, epitomized by Great Britain and the US, is now under threat from its dysfunction and the alienation of its citizens from its institutions and elitist values. The participatory model upholds the capacity of uneducated and poor citizens to govern themselves actively and directly. Good provides illustrations for his arguments from ancient Athens through 17th-century England to developments in post-apartheid South Africa, Iceland, and Arab countries since 2011. Despite his optimism, he admits that the process of participatory democratization will be long term and inherently contentious. While questioning practices of liberal democracy, the author does not forget to criticize the political theory of elitism that underpins modern liberal democracies, a theory developed a century ago by Robert Michels, Max Weber, and Gaetano Mosca. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. * CHOICE * Ken Good's Trust in the Capacities of the People, Distrust in Elites tells the story of the struggle for real democracy from ancient Athens and the Levellers, through the struggle against apartheid, Portugal's 1975 Carnation Revolution and the events of 1989 in Eastern Europe and brings the story up to date with events in Iceland and the Arab world. Challenging lazy accounts of democratization as the result of natural processes or heroic figures, it powerfully restates the burning ideals of radical democracy against both the bland, plastic realities of liberal institutionalism and the conservative celebrations of elite power as good in itself. The book's dramatic and at times heart-wrenching examples give power to its sense of historical change and the open-endedness of the struggle for popular self-government. It shows that mass self-organization, radical education and the struggle for democracy are not idle words but ever-present possibilities which keep reappearing despite the best efforts of the powerful and wealthy and the co-optations and blind alleys which often mark the process. The collapse of popular trust in politics in the UK and US, or the disappointments of revolutionary processes in South Africa and Egypt, are countered by the new ways in which people struggle for equal and direct participation in the decisions which govern their lives. Far from being rendered impossible by the inequalities of neoliberalism, real democracy is shaped by class and poverty, colonialism and race, and gender and grows out of self-organization in struggle. This book should be read by activists and students alike. -- Laurence Cox, Lecturer in Sociology, National University of Ireland Maynooth Trust in the People, Distrust in Elites provides a biting critique of liberal democracy as it is found in the world today, and issues a clarion call in favour of participatory democracy. Taking the Athenian model of democracy as his inspirational model, Ken Good argues that historical and contemporary attempts to realize democracy on a popular basis offer the prospect of a better future for all. Failures will be encountered along the way, yet even they will further the capacities of ordinary people to build equitable democracies, and ultimately to exert control over privileged elites. This is a highly accessible and provocative text, and strongly recommended as an antidote to democratic pessimism. -- Roger Southall, University of the Witwatersrand This book, which will be read as heretical by all forms of elitism, across the political spectrum, offers a scintillating challenge to the political common sense of our times. Good offers a sustained attack on the `insistence that ordinary people are incompetent and irrational, and that only elites are able to think for them and fit to rule'. -- Richard Pithouse, Associate Professor, Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand

Good, author or coauthor of six books on democracy, social inequalities, and southern African politics, offers a study that favorably compares participative democracy to liberal political systems. His key argument is that the liberal capitalist democracy has failed and that participatory forms are rising in many places. The liberal form, epitomized by Great Britain and the US, is now under threat from its dysfunction and the alienation of its citizens from its institutions and elitist values. The participatory model upholds the capacity of uneducated and poor citizens to govern themselves actively and directly. Good provides illustrations for his arguments from ancient Athens through 17th-century England to developments in post-apartheid South Africa, Iceland, and Arab countries since 2011. Despite his optimism, he admits that the process of participatory democratization will be long term and inherently contentious. While questioning practices of liberal democracy, the author does not forget to criticize the political theory of elitism that underpins modern liberal democracies, a theory developed a century ago by Robert Michels, Max Weber, and Gaetano Mosca. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. * CHOICE * Ken Good's Trust in the Capacities of the People, Distrust in Elites tells the story of the struggle for real democracy from ancient Athens and the Levellers, through the struggle against apartheid, Portugal's 1975 Carnation Revolution and the events of 1989 in Eastern Europe and brings the story up to date with events in Iceland and the Arab world. Challenging lazy accounts of democratization as the result of natural processes or heroic figures, it powerfully restates the burning ideals of radical democracy against both the bland, plastic realities of liberal institutionalism and the conservative celebrations of elite power as good in itself. The book's dramatic and at times heart-wrenching examples give power to its sense of historical change and the open-endedness of the struggle for popular self-government. It shows that mass self-organization, radical education and the struggle for democracy are not idle words but ever-present possibilities which keep reappearing despite the best efforts of the powerful and wealthy and the co-optations and blind alleys which often mark the process. The collapse of popular trust in politics in the UK and US, or the disappointments of revolutionary processes in South Africa and Egypt, are countered by the new ways in which people struggle for equal and direct participation in the decisions which govern their lives. Far from being rendered impossible by the inequalities of neoliberalism, real democracy is shaped by class and poverty, colonialism and race, and gender and grows out of self-organization in struggle. This book should be read by activists and students alike. -- Laurence Cox, Lecturer in Sociology, National University of Ireland Maynooth Trust in the People, Distrust in Elites provides a biting critique of liberal democracy as it is found in the world today, and issues a clarion call in favour of participatory democracy. Taking the Athenian model of democracy as his inspirational model, Ken Good argues that historical and contemporary attempts to realize democracy on a popular basis offer the prospect of a better future for all. Failures will be encountered along the way, yet even they will further the capacities of ordinary people to build equitable democracies, and ultimately to exert control over privileged elites. This is a highly accessible and provocative text, and strongly recommended as an antidote to democratic pessimism. -- Roger Southall, University of the Witwatersrand This book, which will be read as heretical by all forms of elitism, across the political spectrum, offers a scintillating challenge to the political common sense of our times. Good offers a sustained attack on the `insistence that ordinary people are incompetent and irrational, and that only elites are able to think for them and fit to rule'. -- Richard Pithouse, Senior Researcher, Rhodes University

Good, author or coauthor of six books on democracy, social inequalities, and southern African politics, offers a study that favorably compares participative democracy to liberal political systems. His key argument is that the liberal capitalist democracy has failed and that participatory forms are rising in many places. The liberal form, epitomized by Great Britain and the US, is now under threat from its dysfunction and the alienation of its citizens from its institutions and elitist values. The participatory model upholds the capacity of uneducated and poor citizens to govern themselves actively and directly. Good provides illustrations for his arguments from ancient Athens through 17th-century England to developments in post-apartheid South Africa, Iceland, and Arab countries since 2011. Despite his optimism, he admits that the process of participatory democratization will be long term and inherently contentious. While questioning practices of liberal democracy, the author does not forget to criticize the political theory of elitism that underpins modern liberal democracies, a theory developed a century ago by Robert Michels, Max Weber, and Gaetano Mosca. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. CHOICE Ken Good's Trust in the Capacities of the People, Distrust in Elites tells the story of the struggle for real democracy from ancient Athens and the Levellers, through the struggle against apartheid, Portugal's 1975 Carnation Revolution and the events of 1989 in Eastern Europe and brings the story up to date with events in Iceland and the Arab world. Challenging lazy accounts of democratization as the result of natural processes or heroic figures, it powerfully restates the burning ideals of radical democracy against both the bland, plastic realities of liberal institutionalism and the conservative celebrations of elite power as good in itself. The book's dramatic and at times heart-wrenching examples give power to its sense of historical change and the open-endedness of the struggle for popular self-government. It shows that mass self-organization, radical education and the struggle for democracy are not idle words but ever-present possibilities which keep reappearing despite the best efforts of the powerful and wealthy and the co-optations and blind alleys which often mark the process. The collapse of popular trust in politics in the UK and US, or the disappointments of revolutionary processes in South Africa and Egypt, are countered by the new ways in which people struggle for equal and direct participation in the decisions which govern their lives. Far from being rendered impossible by the inequalities of neoliberalism, real democracy is shaped by class and poverty, colonialism and race, and gender and grows out of self-organization in struggle. This book should be read by activists and students alike. -- Laurence Cox, Lecturer in Sociology, National University of Ireland Maynooth Trust in the People, Distrust in Elites provides a biting critique of liberal democracy as it is found in the world today, and issues a clarion call in favour of participatory democracy. Taking the Athenian model of democracy as his inspirational model, Ken Good argues that historical and contemporary attempts to realize democracy on a popular basis offer the prospect of a better future for all. Failures will be encountered along the way, yet even they will further the capacities of ordinary people to build equitable democracies, and ultimately to exert control over privileged elites. This is a highly accessible and provocative text, and strongly recommended as an antidote to democratic pessimism. -- Roger Southall, University of the Witwatersrand This book, which will be read as heretical by all forms of elitism, across the political spectrum, offers a scintillating challenge to the political common sense of our times. Good offers a sustained attack on the 'insistence that ordinary people are incompetent and irrational, and that only elites are able to think for them and fit to rule'. -- Richard Pithouse, Rhodes University

Good, author or coauthor of six books on democracy, social inequalities, and southern African politics, offers a study that favorably compares participative democracy to liberal political systems. His key argument is that the liberal capitalist democracy has failed and that participatory forms are rising in many places. The liberal form, epitomized by Great Britain and the US, is now under threat from its dysfunction and the alienation of its citizens from its institutions and elitist values. The participatory model upholds the capacity of uneducated and poor citizens to govern themselves actively and directly. Good provides illustrations for his arguments from ancient Athens through 17th-century England to developments in post-apartheid South Africa, Iceland, and Arab countries since 2011. Despite his optimism, he admits that the process of participatory democratization will be long term and inherently contentious. While questioning practices of liberal democracy, the author does not forget to criticize the political theory of elitism that underpins modern liberal democracies, a theory developed a century ago by Robert Michels, Max Weber, and Gaetano Mosca. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. * CHOICE * Ken Good's Trust in the Capacities of the People, Distrust in Elites tells the story of the struggle for real democracy from ancient Athens and the Levellers, through the struggle against apartheid, Portugal's 1975 Carnation Revolution and the events of 1989 in Eastern Europe and brings the story up to date with events in Iceland and the Arab world. Challenging lazy accounts of democratization as the result of natural processes or heroic figures, it powerfully restates the burning ideals of radical democracy against both the bland, plastic realities of liberal institutionalism and the conservative celebrations of elite power as good in itself. The book's dramatic and at times heart-wrenching examples give power to its sense of historical change and the open-endedness of the struggle for popular self-government. It shows that mass self-organization, radical education and the struggle for democracy are not idle words but ever-present possibilities which keep reappearing despite the best efforts of the powerful and wealthy and the co-optations and blind alleys which often mark the process. The collapse of popular trust in politics in the UK and US, or the disappointments of revolutionary processes in South Africa and Egypt, are countered by the new ways in which people struggle for equal and direct participation in the decisions which govern their lives. Far from being rendered impossible by the inequalities of neoliberalism, real democracy is shaped by class and poverty, colonialism and race, and gender and grows out of self-organization in struggle. This book should be read by activists and students alike. -- Laurence Cox, Lecturer in Sociology, National University of Ireland Maynooth Trust in the People, Distrust in Elites provides a biting critique of liberal democracy as it is found in the world today, and issues a clarion call in favour of participatory democracy. Taking the Athenian model of democracy as his inspirational model, Ken Good argues that historical and contemporary attempts to realize democracy on a popular basis offer the prospect of a better future for all. Failures will be encountered along the way, yet even they will further the capacities of ordinary people to build equitable democracies, and ultimately to exert control over privileged elites. This is a highly accessible and provocative text, and strongly recommended as an antidote to democratic pessimism. -- Roger Southall, University of the Witwatersrand This book, which will be read as heretical by all forms of elitism, across the political spectrum, offers a scintillating challenge to the political common sense of our times. Good offers a sustained attack on the `insistence that ordinary people are incompetent and irrational, and that only elites are able to think for them and fit to rule'. -- Richard Pithouse, Rhodes University

Author Information

Kenneth Good is adjunct professor in global studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and visiting professor in political and international studies at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa.

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