Western Elites and Societies in Twenty-First Century Politics : Avoiding Calamity

Higley, John

Palgrave Macmillan（2025/01発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 99 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9783031523090

Full Description

This book focuses on threats to the continued viability of Western institutions and practices for which it is not easy to conceive remedies consistent with the Western tradition. Higley argues that structural difficulties in postindustrial societies, particularly the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and elsewhere, threatened troubles that political manipulation by elites might not be sufficient to contain or resolve. Struggling against lethal climate change, politically explosive waves of migrants and refugees, the likelihood of further pandemics, populist nationalism, and destabilizing effects of social media, elites must consider new demographic, economic, social, political, and international policies. Higley offers a powerful and provocative analysis of the elite's ability to sustain Western societies in their current social and political forms.

Contents

1. Avoiding Calamity.- 2. Western Elites and Populists.- 3.  Representative Government's Prospects.- 4. Democracy as Rationalization and Panacea.- 5. Anticipations of Parousia in Western Societies.- 6. Intellectual Elites and Realities of Work.- 7. Plutocracy and Demagogy in a Weak State.- 8. The Democracy Ideal Reconsidered.