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Democratic Failure: Tracking The Ebb Of Democracy's Flow, 1800–2006, Sanja E. Sray
Democratic Failure: Tracking The Ebb Of Democracy's Flow, 1800–2006, Sanja E. Sray
Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations
Scant attention has focused on the systematic study of democratic failure. This dissertation partially corrects this oversight. Tracing the roots of antidemocratic sentiment across the centuries, it first argues that the advance of institutions, fueled by underlying shifts in values and innovation in political philosophy, was key to freeing democracy from its bondage as a most disparaged form of governance. Focusing on the measurable aspects of these institutions, the study focuses on describing patterns of behavior when democracies fail. First, it shows that there have been clusters of democratic failure. These clusters, or counterwaves, find their roots in ancient antidemocratic …