Militant Democracy and Its Critics: Populism, Parties, Extremism - Paperback

by Anthoula Malkopoulou (Editor), Alexander Kirshner (Editor)

Militant Democracy refers to the defensive policies democracies use to respond to antidemocratic movements. Can defensive efforts that curtail rights of participation be consistent with democratic values? In this collection of essays, scholars from across politics, philosophy and law address the unresolved practical and theoretical questions concerning democracy and extremism. The collection provides an update to a key contemporary debate in democratic theory and asks us to reconsider the potential promise and costs of militant democracy.

Front Jacket

Should representative governments restrict the democratic rights of their extremist opponents? Militant Democracy refers to the defensive policies democracies use to respond to antidemocratic movements. Can defensive efforts that curtail rights of participation be consistent with democratic values? In this collection of essays, scholars from across politics, philosophy and law address the unresolved practical and theoretical questions concerning democracy and extremism. The collection provides an update to a key contemporary debate in democratic theory and asks us to reconsider the potential promise and costs of militant democracy. Anthoula Malkopoulou is Docent and Lecturer in the Department of Government at Uppsala University. Alexander Kirshner is Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University.

Author Biography

Anthoula Malkopoulou is Docent and Lecturer at the Department of Government, Uppsala University. She has been a Marie Curie Fellow at the same department and a visiting fellow at the Faculty of Arts Program 'Engaging Vulnerability'. She has also held research positions at Princeton University, the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and the University of Jyväskylä. Malkopoulou is the author of The History of Compulsory Voting in Europe (Routledge, 2015) and co-editor of Equality and Representation (Routledge: 2018).

Alexander Kirshner is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Duke University. He was Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, 2015-16. His is the author of A Theory of Militant Democracy (Yale University Press 2014) and co-editor of Political Representation (Cambridge University Press 2010).