In this witty and engaging book, Aviezer Tucker argues that the contemporary revival of authoritarian populism combines the historically familiar with new technologies to produce a highly unstable and contagious new synthesis that threatens basic liberal norms, from freedom of the press to independent judiciaries. He examines how the economic crisis blocked social mobility and thereby awakened the dark, dormant political passions exploited by demagogues such as Orban and Trump. He argues that this slide towards ‘neo-illiberal democracy’ can be countered if we hard-headedly restore a ‘liberalism without nostalgia’ which institutes policies that can dampen down populist passions and strengthen liberal institutional barriers against them.
Readers interested in current affairs, social science, history, and political and social theory will find Aviezer Tucker’s original theoretical and historical analysis incisive, innovative, and entertaining.
Table of Contents
1 What’s Your Problem? Illiberalism, Populism, AuthoritarianismDemocracy vs. Authoritarianism
Liberalism vs. Absolutism
Populism vs. Technocracy
Eight Regimes
The Scope of Neo-Illiberal Democracy
Weimar, Jackson, Singapore
Plan of the Book
2 Illiberal Democracy: Old Hemlock in Plastic Cups
The Self-Destruction of Absolute Democracy
Neo-Illiberal Unbalancing of the Liberal Checks
The Judiciary
Civil Service
Civil Society and Independent Institutions
Unmediated Politics
Media
Disinformation
Populism as Wishful Thinking
Historical Amnesia and Sisyphean Politics
Neo-Illiberalism is not Neo-Nationalist
Neo-Illiberalism is not an Over-Reaction to Immigration
Neo-Illiberalism is not Confused Socialism
3 All the Roads Lead to Caesarea
Post-Post-Totalitarian Pathway
Path Dependency II
A House Divided: Prognostic Instability
Budapest on the Potomac
The Surf Beaches of Utopia
Dynamic Equilibria
4 It Ain’t Necessarily So: The Historical Evitability of Neo-Illiberal Democracy
Historical Evitability
A Contemporary Case for Economic Inevitability
What happened?
Contingencies
Hungary
Brexit
Trump
5 New Liberalism without Nostalgia
Preempting Populism
Universal Basic Income
Dispersing the Anonymous Mob: Tracing Electronic Origins
Historical Education and Commemoration
Breaking the Glass Barriers to Mobility
Geographic Mobility
Strengthening Liberal Institutions
Democratic Election Systems
New Liberalism without Nostalgia
References
Index
