The Democratic Invention (A Journal of Democracy Book)

Thirteen leading scholars and world leaders reflect upon the significance of democracy as a system of government and its consequences both within individual countries and internationally. The book is organized into four parts. "The Democratic Prospect" offers broad-ranging global assessments of the recent history and the future prospects of democracy. "Transitions to Democracy" focuses on three specific cases of democratic transition: the United States in the late eighteenth century, Portugal in the 1970s, and Central Europe after 1989. "Beyond and Below the Nation" deals with democracy at different levels in terms of scale. "Religion, Morality, and Belief" examines perennial problems that confront all democratic societies, whether they are newly emerging or long established.

Despite the democracy movement's success over the past 25 years, the authors conclude, democracy faces new threats from ethnic conflict, the stresses of a globalized economy, and a spiritual weariness evident within some older democratic societies.

Contributors: Jõao Carlos Espada, Portuguese Catholic University, Lisbon • Marc F. Plattner, coeditor, Journal of Democracy • François Furet (1927-97), University of Chicago • His Holiness the Dalai Lama • Jean Daniel, founder, editor, and director of Le Nouvel Observateur • Diego Freitas do Amaral, University of Lisbon • Bronislaw Geremek, foreign minister of Poland • Gertrude Himmelfarb, City University of New York • Samuel P. Huntington, Harvard University • Seymour Martin Lipset, George Mason University • Robert A. Pastor, Emory University • Andrea Riccardi, University of Rome • Mário Soares, former president and prime minister of Portugal • Alfred Stepan, Columbia University • Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution

Marc F. Plattner is a counselor at the National Endowment for Democracy, a codirector of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, and a coeditor of the Journal of Democracy. Jõao Carlos Espada is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon and is director of the Institute for Political Studies at the Portuguese Catholic University.