The People vs. Democracy

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice“Everyone worried about the state of contemporary politics should read this book.”-Anne-Marie Slaughter“A trenchant survey from 1989, with its democratic euphoria, to the current map of autocratic striving.”-David Remnick, New YorkerThe world is in turmoil.From Russia and Turkey across Europe to the United States, authoritarian populists have seized power as two core components of liberal democracy-individual rights and the popular will-are increasingly at war.As the role of money in politics has soared, a system of “rights without democracy” has taken hold.Populists who rail against this say they want to return power to the people.But in practice they create something just as bad: a system of “democracy without rights.” Yascha Mounk offers a clear and trenchant analysis of what ails our democracy and what it will take to get it back on track. “Democracy is going through its worst crisis since the 1930s… But what exactly is the nature of this