HOW DEMOCRACY ENDS

DAVID RUNCIMAN Profile, 249pp, £14.99, Oldie price £9.35 inc p&p

‘Mature, Western democracy is over the hill,’ says Runciman, a professor of politics at the University of Cambridge. ‘Its prime is past.’ The Evening Standard’s Melanie Mcdonagh found this ‘a sufficiently shocking assertion to scare anyone,

even more terrifying after he has calmly discussed the alternatives… The scariest chapter is on the impact of the digital revolution on democracy, and he discusses using new technology to consult voters directly. Yet he thinks that in the new world order the old Leviathan of the state will be pitted against the new Leviathan: those who control technology. In this contest, the new masters will win.’

In his review for the Times, Edward Lucas praised Runciman’s ‘short, readable and insightful book’ for its ‘innovative’ approach: ‘Political scientists tend to study how democracy dawns, not the ways it may die… The book’s main weakness is that it focuses too much on electoral democracy and scarcely mentions the rule of law and civil society… “Democracy” is shorthand for a much bigger concept of a just and free society. That may be in danger too – but for reasons that go beyond the scope of this enjoyable, but narrowly focused book.’ Describing it as ‘bracingly intelligent’ and ‘a wonderful read’ that ‘contains much good sense’, Mark Mazower, in his Guardian review, welcomed the fact that Runciman does not see fascism as democracy’s principal adversary. What the book ‘captures well is the sense of living in an age in which democracy is taken for granted and thus allowed to disintegrate from within’.