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democracy


  • The US is a Procedural, Not a Substantive, Democracy

    by Van Gosse

    "The United States is well on its way to becoming a strictly procedural democracy, wherein legal and constitutional norms are observed, but the core requirements for democratic decision-making—the rule of the majority, the right of all citizens to vote without hindrance—are ignored."



  • Albion Tourgée's Forgotten Proposal for Power to the People

    by Brook Thomas

    The Black Republican activist hoped to draft a Reconstruction constitution for North Carolina that vested power in the people, which might have prevented the potential mischief that could be unleashed by Supreme Court cases that threaten to empower state legislatures to thwart democracy. 



  • Defending Democracy Will Mean Working Locally for the Common Good

    by Nell Irvin Painter

    Americans can fight both partisan dysfunction in Washington and the rise of authoritarianism and ethnic nationalism by working to advance the common good in their own communities, strengthening bonds of social solidarity. 



  • There's No Choice But to Fight for a Better America

    by Siva Vaidhyanathan

    "We often misdiagnose our current malady as one of 'polarization.' That’s wrong. We have one rogue, ethno-authoritarian party and one fairly stable and diverse party."



  • Why Direct Democracy is The Best Protection for Abortion Rights

    by Rachel Rebouché and Mary Ziegler

    Given the chance to vote directly on abortion rights, voters have been swayed by personal experience and shared stories to protect reproductive freedom and leave the choice in the hands of women, not politicians. 



  • The Constitution's Support for Oligarchy

    Jonathan Gienapp says that the Framers made deliberate choices to make the Constitution a bulwark against what they saw as the danger of broad-based democracy. 



  • Eric Foner on the Study of History and Democracy

    "I’m always interested in the connections between past and present. The questions that interest me historically tend to come out of the moment I’m living in."



  • "Independent State Legislature" Legal Theory Based in Fake History

    Charles Pinckney's ideas for the Constitution were rejected by the framers. Years later, he produced fake documents to aggrandize his own role at the convention. Right-wing legal activists have used them to argue that state legislatures can decide election results however they want. 



  • Can We Do Better than Liberal Democracy?

    by Adam Gopnik

    Critic Adam Gopnik examines two recent books on alternatives to representative democracy that respond to the recent use of institutions by power-seeking authoritarians. 



  • American Democracy Wasn't Built to be Democratic

    by Louis Menand

    In a review essay of several books diagnosing the maladies of American democracy, Louis Menand concludes that the system itself is working as designed: to thwart popular rule.