Mezey (S)electing the President

The Perils of Democracy
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-1-315-45083-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Selecting political leaders by popular election is an unquestioned hallmark of representative democracies--the institutional manifestation of Lincoln’s promise of a government of the people and by the people. But in 2016, Lincoln’s promise seems to have given way to Hamilton’s nightmare—with his worries that popular elections would produce demagogues who paid an "obsequious court to the people," appealing to their passions and prejudices rather than to their reason. This book examines the commitment to the widest level of participation among the largest number of citizens in the selection of the President. It looks at three salient characteristics of our current presidential election environment that bring the wisdom of this commitment into question: the declining influence of political parties; the communication revolution in the form of the internet, social media, and cable television; and the impact of money, accelerated and ratified in a series of Supreme Court decisions. Ultimately, Mezey asks whether our now fully democratized presidential selection process has in fact diminished the quality of our presidential candidates and the campaigns they run, whether the turn to demagoguery that the Founders feared has materialized, what the consequences of our presidential selection process have been for American government, and whether or not it would be valuable to rethink our wholehearted commitment to popular election of the President. His answers do not topple our commitment to popular elections but rather point the way toward improving the quality of both participation and democracy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mezey, Michael L.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

Chapter 1. Candidate Quality and the Presidential Election of 2016

Chapter 2. Democracy, Representation, and Elections

Chapter 3. The Founders and Presidential Selection

Chapter 4. Democratization and Political Parties

Chapter 5. The Democratized Nomination Process

Chapter 6. The Democratized Media

Chapter 7. Charisma, Demagoguery, Populism, and Celebrity

Chapter 8. Democratization and Presidentialism

Chapter 9. The Perils of Democracy

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Michael L. Mezey is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at DePaul University.