Nadia Urbinati

Populism suddenly is everywhere, and everywhere misunderstood. Nadia Urbinati argues that populism should be regarded as government based on an unmediated relationship between the leader and those defined as the “good” or “right” people. Mingling history, theory, and current affairs, Urbinati illuminates populism’s tense relation to democracy.

How Populism Transforms Democracy

Me the People

Steven Lukes

Nicolas de Condorcet (1743–1794), the innovating founder of mathematical thinking in politics, was the last great philosophe of the French Enlightenment and a central figure in the early years of the French Revolution. His political writings give a compelling vision of human progress across world history and express the hopes of that time in the future perfectibility of man. This volume contains a revised translation of 'The Sketch', written while in hiding from the Jacobin Terror, together with lesser-known writings on the emancipation of women, the abolition of slavery, the meanings of freedom and despotism and reflections on revolutionary violence. The introduction by Steven Lukes and Nadia Urbinati sets these works in context and shows why Condorcet is of real interest today as we reinterpret the meaning of Enlightenment, the very idea of progress and the founding ideas of social democracy.

Condorcet: Political Writings

"In a well-reasoned and thought-provoking polemic, respected political theorist Nadia Urbinati explores a profound shift in the ideology of individualism, from the ethical nineteenth-century standard, in which each person cooperates with others as equalsfor the betterment of their lives and the community, to the contemporary "I don't give a damn" maxim. Identifying this "tyranny of the moderns" as the most radical risk that modern democracy currently faces, the author examines the critical necessity of reestablishing the role of the individual citizen as a free and equal agent of democratic society"--

The Tyranny of the Moderns

In a well-reasoned and thought-provoking polemic, respected political theorist Nadia Urbinati explores a profound shift in the ideology of individualism, from the ethical nineteenth-century standard, in which each person cooperates with others as equals for the betterment of their lives and the community, to the contemporary “I don’t give a damn” maxim. Identifying this “tyranny of the moderns” as the most radical risk that modern democracy currently faces, the author examines the critical necessity of reestablishing the role of the individual citizen as a free and equal agent of democratic society.

Alex Zakaras

The year 2006 marked the two hundredth anniversary of John Stuart Mill's birth. Though his philosophical reputation has varied greatly, it is now clear that Mill ranks among the most influential modern political thinkers. Despite his enduring influence, the breadth and complexity of Mill's political thought is often underappreciated. While his writings remain a touchstone for debates over liberty and liberalism, many other important dimensions of his political philosophy have until recently been ignored. This book aims to correct such neglect, by illustrating the breadth and depth of Mill's political writings, by drawing together a collection of essays whose authors explore underappreciated elements of Mill's political philosophy. The book shows how Mill's thinking remains pertinent to our own political life in three broad areas - democratic institutions and culture, liberalism, and international politics - and offers a critical reassessment of Mill's political philosophy in light of recent political developments and transformations.

A Bicentennial Reassessment

J.S. Mill's Political Thought

Arturo Zampaglione

The twin crises of immigration and mass migration brought new urgency to the balance of power between progressive, humanitarian groups and their populist opponents. In the United States and many European countries, the outcome of this struggle is uncertain, with a high chance that the public will elect more politicians who support an agenda of nativism and privatization. The Antiegalitarian Mutation makes a forceful case that those seeking to limit citizenship and participation, political or otherwise, have co-opted democracy. Political and legal institutions are failing to temper the interests of people with economic power against the needs of the many, leading to an unsustainable rise in income inequality and a new oligarchy rapidly assuming broad social control. For Nadia Urbinati and Arturo Zampaglione, this insupportable state of affairs is not an inevitable outcome of robust capitalism but rather the result of an ideological war waged against social democracy by the neoliberal governments of Reagan, Thatcher, and others. These giants of free-market fundamentalism secured power through legitimate political means, and only by taking back our political institutions can we remedy the social ills that threaten to unmake our world. That, according to The Antiegalitarian Mutation, is democracy's challenge and its ongoing promise.

The Failure of Institutional Politics in Liberal Democracies

The Antiegalitarian Mutation

Ognuno di noi ha il proprio fenotipo ed è grazie a esso che gli altri ci riconoscono. Allo stesso modo, una società democratica ha caratteristiche proprie che la rendono esteriormente riconoscibile. La democrazia rappresentativa è un sistema diarchico fondato sulla volontà (diritto di voto, procedure e istituzioni che regolano la formazione di decisioni volontarie o sovrane) e sull’opinione (sfera extraistituzionale delle opinioni politiche), che si influenzano e collaborano, senza mai fondersi. Questo è il volto che oggi appare sfigurato. Tre le deformazioni: la tendenza a letture apolitiche della deliberazione pubblica (il mito del governo tecnico); la promozione di soluzioni populiste; la spinta al plebiscito e dunque la democrazia dell’audience. Riaffermare il potere della diarchia, tutelando la funzione dell’opinione, è essenziale alla sopravvivenza della democrazia.

Il popolo fra opinione e verità

Democrazia sfigurata

In Democracy Disfigured, Nadia Urbinati diagnoses the ills that beset the body politic in an age of hyper-partisanship and media monopolies and offers a spirited defense of the messy compromises and contentious outcomes that define democracy. Urbinati identifies three types of democratic disfiguration: the unpolitical, the populist, and the plebiscitarian. Each undermines a crucial division that a well-functioning democracy must preserve: the wall separating the free forum of public opinion from governmental institutions that enact the will of the people. Unpolitical democracy delegitimizes political opinion in favor of expertise. Populist democracy radically polarizes the public forum in which opinion is debated. And plebiscitary democracy overvalues the aesthetic and nonrational aspects of opinion. For Urbinati, democracy entails a permanent struggle to make visible the issues that citizens deem central to their lives. Opinion is thus a form of action as important as the mechanisms that organize votes and mobilize decisions. Urbinati focuses less on the overt enemies of democracy than on those who pose as its friends: technocrats wedded to procedure, demagogues who make glib appeals to "the people," and media operatives who, given their preference, would turn governance into a spectator sport and citizens into fans of opposing teams.

Democracy Disfigured

David Johnston

Camila Vergara

More than five hundred years after Machiavelli wrote The Prince, his landmark treatise on the pragmatic application of power remains a pivot point for debates on political thought. While scholars continue to investigate interpretations of The Prince in different contexts throughout history, from the Renaissance to the Risorgimento and Italian unification, other fruitful lines of research explore how Machiavelli’s ideas about power and leadership can further our understanding of contemporary political circumstances. With Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict, David Johnston, Nadia Urbinati, and Camila Vergara have brought together the most recent research on The Prince, with contributions from many of the leading scholars of Machiavelli, including Quentin Skinner, Harvey Mansfield, Erica Benner, John McCormick, and Giovanni Giorgini. Organized into four sections, the book focuses first on Machiavelli’s place in the history of political thought: Is he the last of the ancients or the creator of a new, distinctly modern conception of politics? And what might the answer to this question reveal about the impact of these disparate traditions on the founding of modern political philosophy? The second section contrasts current understandings of Machiavelli’s view of virtues in The Prince. The relationship between political leaders, popular power, and liberty is another perennial problem in studies of Machiavelli, and the third section develops several claims about that relationship. Finally, the fourth section explores the legacy of Machiavelli within the republican tradition of political thought and his relevance to enduring political issues.

Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict

Although Machiavelli s ideas have entered the language as an adjective, what Machiavellian means at least to those who study him is a matter of ongoing and vigorous debate. Interpretations range from liberal and conservative, Cambridge School and anti-Cambridge School, Postmodernists, and traditionalists. All these approaches and others can be found in this distinctive volume drawn from an international conference celebrating the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli s "The Prince.". With original contributions by many of the field s leading scholars Quentin Skinner, Harvey Mansfield, Erica Benner, John McCormick, and Giovanni Giorgini, to name but a few."

Individualismo democratico. Emerson, Dewey e la cultura politica americana

Hay buenas razones para sentirse decepcionado con el sistema político. Las numerosas promesas que la democracia ha incumplido, la tendencia general de las economías a agudizar las desigualdades, los pavorosos ejemplos de corrupción gubernamental, el conformismo que los ciudadanos perciben en los partidos: la mesa está puesta para que queramos acabar con lo establecido, ese equilibrio que parece beneficiar a una élite y marginar a las mayorías. Ahí florece el populismo. Hoy que en diversos países ese movimiento de masas se ha convertido en fuerza gobernante, conviene entender su naturaleza, su lenguaje, sus metas últimas y los riesgos que entraña. Nadia Urbinati explora en Yo, el pueblo el espíritu antisistema del populismo, su tendencia a proclamar la existencia en la sociedad de una parte "buena" —y por contraste una "mala"—, el avasallante protagonismo de sus líderes, el abuso de su condición de mayoría temporal, la deformación de las elecciones y las instituciones que puede producir. Tras un recorrido por numerosas teorías sobre este fenómeno político y el análisis de ejemplos concretos, la autora nos invita a dejar de discutir qué es el populismo y en cambio a mirar qué hace, en particular la forma en que puede transformar la raíz misma de la democracia. "A diferencia de tantos estudiosos que se suben al tren del populismo, Nadia Urbinati tiene una teoría de la democracia bien desarrollada, que despliega hábilmente para señalar los peligros de este fenómeno. Se basa en su profundo conocimiento de la historia del pensamiento político para plantear aquí sus argumentos." Jan-Werner Müller, autor de "¿Qué es el populismo?" "El populismo es el desafío más serio que enfrentan las democracias liberales contemporáneas. El libro de Urbinati nos ayuda a comprender la imaginación y el lenguaje populista; aprecia el origen de su astucia y registra también sus peligros." Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez, "Reforma"

Nadia Urbinati

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