Demagogues and Despots

Democracy and despotism live closer together than youd expectthis briskly astute book reveals why that should alarm us all.We live in troubled times, marked by a sinister trend threatening democracy everywhere: the triumph of despotism not only in countries like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but also in states run by popularly elected demagoguesOrbn and Erdoan, Netanyahu and Trump.Leading political thinker John Keane shows why this new despotism defies the laws of political gravity. Instead of relying exclusively on fear or force, it fosters a strange, pseudo-democratic type of government, led by rulers skilled in winning public loyalty through election-rigging, legal trickery, corruption, weaponised lying and talk of enemies. And alarmingly, the new despots hunt in packs.But whats so good about democracy? In bold, energetic prose, Keane explains that its much more than popular self-government based on free and fair elections. Democracy is the collective insistence that unaccountable power is always dangerousand that democratic institutions are our best weapon against demagogues and despots.